Arecent ruling by a German court at first glance could be seen as a victory for freedom of speech. But on closer inspection, it shows why so-called visibility filtering—artificially restricting the reach of online content rather than removing it outright—is the future, and indeed increasingly the present, of online censorship.
As reported by the German alternative media Nius in February, a court in Wiesbaden acquitted defendant Sebastian W. of the charge of having “insulted” Germany’s then-Economics Minister Robert Habeck. (“Insult” is a crime in German law.) In a July 2024 tweet, Sebastian W. referred to the German minister as a “traitor.” Under Section 188 of the German Criminal Code, which is commonly known in Germany as the lèse-majesté law, the penalties for insulting a public official are greater than those for insulting an ordinary citizen.
In another highly publicized case also involving Habeck, German retiree Stefan Niehoff had his home raided in November 2024 merely for having retweeted an obviously satirical tweet that jokingly referred to Habeck as a “professional moron.” (On the Niehoff case, see here, here, and here.)
Much of the ostensible “hate speech” prosecuted under German law consists not, say, of speech considered to be racist, sexist, or homophobic, but merely of personal insults. Hence, much of the speech that German sources reported to online platforms under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the E.U.’s flagship online censorship law, undoubtedly consists of such insults as well. The activities of the German organization HateAid, which enjoys the status of an officially certified “trusted flagger” of illegal content under the DSA, make this clear.
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