A journalist in Germany was just sentenced to seven months for posting a meme of a politician where she holds up a sign saying "I hate free speech".
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/nancy-faeser-afd-...
That's called defamation.
Just because he later claimed it's satire doesn't make it satire.
Seven months for that seems insane to me. It looks far more like a meme/satire than an attempt to create a realistic fake, given it's just pure-black impact font and an implausible message ("I hate freedom of speech!") to be holding up on a sign.
It is, but see what the article has to say about that (translated with google translate):
> Among other things, they complain about the inappropriate severity of the justice system against an allegedly satirical statement. What is left unmentioned, however, is that the trial only took place because Bendels previously refused to pay a fine of 210 daily rates imposed by the same district court in November.
I know nothing about this person or this case, but it sounds like he has done this before and refused to pay a fine, so the court said "enough is enough" and sent him to prison.
If this was the first fine, would you agree that ~$60k is disproportionate?
I can't help to notice how with just a little bit of context we've come from reacting to "A journalist in Germany was just sentenced to seven months for posting a meme" to deciding if a fine was disproportionate.
With all that, the only sensible answer I can give is that I don't know. It's useless to be outraged by something that might be a non-story.
Even in Germany, I don't believe a meme like this one would typically incur any fine.
> (2) "Bendels has no criminal record" -- does that mean he was never convicted of defamation, or is that a red herring because defamation a civil (not criminal) matter?
My understanding is that he has now been convicted of criminal defamation (so it should probably be past tense), but had no such prior convictions.
> I can't help to notice how with just a little bit of context we've come from reacting to "A journalist in Germany was just sentenced to seven months for posting a meme" to deciding if a fine was disproportionate.
I don't personally believe there should have been any fine or prison sentence for posting the meme. I ask you whether you think the fine seems disproportionate based on current information because I see that as the smallest and most likely concession for you to make, assuming you can be intellectually honest, not because the fine being disproportionate is the full extent of my stance.
> With all that, the only sensible answer I can give is that I don't know. It's useless to be outraged by something that might be a non-story.
We've got the original post, the court's sentence and reasoning, and most other information you want to know could be researched online. There has to be some point at which we start publicly discussing an issue - that doesn't prohibit us from updating our views if there really is some decisive new evidence.
