German Dystopia: Friedrich Merz’s and Olaf Scholz’s Incoming Coalition To Turn Censorship Into Overdrive, Crack Down on Social Media and ‘Ban Lies’
If one thinks that de-industrialized and immigrant-flooded Germany was in a poor state, we just have to wait until the new incoming coalition is in place to see how bad things are about to become.
German tabloid BILD has had access to documents from the negotiators of the ‘black-red coalition’ (Friedrich Merz’s CDU and Olaf Scholz’s SPD). And what it found is quite disturbing: they want to take hard action ‘against lies’ – i.e. they are about to double down on censorship and propaganda.
These plans emerge from the negotiation paper ‘Culture and Media’ working group, predicting that the pressure on social media is to be considerably expanded and whatever they deem to call ‘fake news’ is to be severely restricted.
BILD reported:
“The exploratory paper already stated that ‘disinformation and fake news’ threatened democracy. The negotiating paper now even states: ‘The deliberate dissemination of false factual allegations is not covered by freedom of expression’.
The consequence: ‘Therefore, the media supervisory authority, which is independent of the state, must be able to take action against information manipulation as well as hatred and incitement on the basis of clear legal requirements, while preserving freedom of expression’.”
Pressure on platforms like X is expected to increase, and certain ‘false statements’ are to be ‘prevented’, i.e., CENSORED.
In a previous post (WATCH: VP Vance Says Germany ‘Is Killing Itself’ With Unchecked Mass Migration) we highlighted how US Vice President JD Vance has expressed worry about the current censorship push in Berlin.
“Vance made a fiery CPAC Speech on February 20th where he has a few words about his Teutonic friends: ‘Germany’s entire defense is subsidized by the American taxpayer… Do you think the American taxpayer is going to stand for that if you get thrown in jail in Germany for posting a mean tweet?’”
Back on the BILD report, some German lawyers were very critical of this kind of state ‘regulation.’
“’Lies are only prohibited if they are punishable, for example in the case of incitement to hatred. Otherwise, you can lie’, Volker Boehme-Neßler (62, University of Oldenburg) told BILD.
It is also not so clear from a legal point of view what constitutes a lie: ‘It is not a simple question of what is a statement of fact and what is an expression of opinion. In most cases, courts interpret freedom of expression very broadly’.”
Back on the BILD report, some German lawyers were very critical of this kind of state ‘regulation.’
“’Lies are only prohibited if they are punishable, for example in the case of incitement to hatred. Otherwise, you can lie’, Volker Boehme-Neßler (62, University of Oldenburg) told BILD.
It is also not so clear from a legal point of view what constitutes a lie: ‘It is not a simple question of what is a statement of fact and what is an expression of opinion. In most cases, courts interpret freedom of expression very broadly’.”
While the political speech is protected by freedom of expression, the new push will see any ‘controversial’ statement running the risk of criminal prosecution.
“This is the view of lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel, who regularly takes action against the deletion of Internet contributions on behalf of a wide variety of clients. The [coalition negotiating] paper has the ‘clear goal of intimidating the unpopular social media’. He considers the threatened consequences to be ‘problematic [and] threatening’. The media supervisory authority already lacks a ‘constitutionally compliant basis for its actions’.”
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