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At the end, this political system is about supporting current power who settled by force (and to whom you have to pay a tax to not be sent into physical jail, and all your belongings taken).
Remember that at the beginning, these nice people are actually people who killed to be in place, and collected a lot of power and money, and that are now defending their position.
Kingdoms, then Dictatorship were too unstable, and this gave birth to Democracy, still with the same elites.
In some way, it is a softer continuation of conquest-coercion dressed as consent.
The newest generations use propaganda to settle; the approach changes, but the goal is ultimately the same.
There are people who see that as positive, because are used to be extremely careful and conscious of their words. But is a very thin line, where one word can obliterate your life as you know it.
>A rights holder represented in the CUII can find copyright infringements and then file a lawsuit with the court for the implementation of a DNS block. If the court decides that a DNS block is lawful, this block is implemented by the Internet access providers organized in the CUII. The prerequisites for a blocking claim against the Internet access provider pursuant to § 8 DDG are met, - if a rights holder can prove his copyright, - his works are published on the Internet without his consent, - he has no other way of remedying the infringement, - if the blocking is reasonable and proportionate.
[0] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Fachthemen/Digitales/Sch...
The RT ban is not about what RT publishes, you are free to publish their arguments more or less verbatim on your own site without getting sanctioned in Europe (which indeed some people do). The RT ban is about RT being a state owned propaganda network owned by the government thats waging an active war against Europe.
In your country if say some public TV would publish hard core porn mid day for children to see, would there be consequences? like fines and license removal? I am sure in civilized countries that TV station will be punished.
Now imagine you have a Ruzzian TV station publishing hard core porn for children to see, how to you punsish them without paid trolls claiming censorship ? Because this si what happens, in Romania Romanian TV station need to respect the Romanian laws , liek for example pay fines and retract any falsehoods and mistakes, but Ruzzians can publish fake documents and videos and if we want them to respect the laws of our countries we it is censorship... blocking faked documents is bad, blocking boobs is good in the land of the free
In many cases, even investigative journalists cannot obtain details about governance processes and decisions made behind closed doors. The government often cites strict data protection rules and uses them as a shield against disclosure.
Another example: In Germany, you are generally not allowed to film law enforcement. If someone feels they have been treated "unfairly", good luck to prove that in court when two officers present a completely different version of events, especially since body cameras are very rare in germany.
There is a saying: if voting would change things, it is long time that it would have been forbidden
The good solution would be the educate the population about critical thinking, and to use their brain when they see information.
If you just censor things, you hide the real problems, and end up with dumb people without critical judgment (or no access to information).
rt hasn't done this and there are concrete laws against doing this, if rt violated them, they would/should fined/suspended, it's really that simple, do you have any real examples of illegal things they've carried out?
and if you're implying that extrajudicial measures are the only effective method to deal w/ situations like these, then there's an issue w/ the laws
just because censorship is carried out against a cause you don't like, doesn't make it justified, since it's very likely to be used in less benevolent ways in the future
So let me flip the question: if a certain thing is illegal in a jurisdiction, but hosted outside, is it justified to block access to the hosting provider (notably, including Cloudflare and other giants)?
The decision to classify something as propaganda should never be the role of a government, much less blocking it.
But that's something that's close to impossible for continental European cultures to ever understand, at a gut level.
Setting limits on what content can be shown at what times isn’t censorship because you’re not actually censoring content. What you’re doing is setting rules about scheduling content.
Honestly, wartime foreign media blocking is the only justified censorship type IMHO. Even then I would say that should be accessible with a delay. Why? Because media is is part of the tools in the war, up until the last day before the invasion Moscow officials on Twitter were mocking USA and other western leaders warning that Russia has troops build up and the invasion was imminent. The traditional Russian media was also writing articles about this. This was putting political pressure on the Western leaders, portraying them as warmongers reducing their credibility etc. Then suddenly one night Putin had 55min speech on why it was the West was the actual invaders and started the invasion. To this day, the Russian propaganda holds strong and awful lot of people are convinced that it is Russia who is facing invasion and is fighting bravely against the aggressors. Including the US administration since a few months.
On the other hand, complete permanent blocking also undermines populations assessment of the reality. As it turned out, the West wasn't also entirely truthful on the progress of the war and the effectiveness of the sanctions.
I don't know maybe we should have safeguards instead of censorship.
Except, in the case of RT, it was not justified in an abstract way at all. Consistently "reporting" on stories counter-indicated by all available evidence.
To put it another way, if a judge can imprison a murderer for life as justified by the motive of reducing murders, what's stopping them from imprisoning everyone with no justification at all? Well, in practice the evidence required is quite a hurdle to this.
If you're not arguing that RT is innocent of what it has been accused, then you're arguing against the concept of punitive action outright.
If you are a parent, it is your responsibility to watch your kids and install a porn filter on their computer / tv / phones. It is pointless to have websites to verify that you are old enough, as there always be websites from abroad who will not respect the law, and it forces you to leak your identity (who becomes tied to your IP address).
If you are not happy with propaganda, it is your role and the role of schools to educate people around about how to consume information and look with a critical view.
I think the current shift in acceptance of blocking social media for children is a start and allows us to consider it’s positive and negative effects.
It’s very easy to convince anyone to support your cause. Just tell them they are the real victims, that they have been deprived of their rightful privilege, and that it is someone else’s fault. Give them undue credit, take away their inconvenient responsibilities. I promise you, they will have zero motivation to uncover your lies.
We have a collective responsibility to protect the truth - the actual, messy, complicated, real-life truth.
I believe in democracy. If people want to listen to ridiculous and false Russian propaganda or support Russia against Ukraine they should be able to without hindrance, even if their politicians or the better informed don’t like it. It’s their job to persuade their fellows. They shouldn’t get to declare their beliefs are right and beyond democratic contestation.
Sometimes democracies make really bad decisions. Alciabiades conned the Athenians into the disastrous Sicilian Expedition. That’s the tradeoff you get for having a democracy. Declaring some subjects out of bounds is taking away democracy and installing something else instead, with those tradeoffs, that we as a society decided we weren’t going to make, without consensus.
But if you applied it consistently, you'd have to admit that Germany, the US, and many other Western countries also engage in full-blown hybrid warfare, against their own populations.
For that matter, in most cases where RT has been linked to me, I couldn't see any clear way that the story advanced Russian interests, except perhaps by trying to paint the USA as full of internal social and cultural conflicts. But, frankly, American media does a pretty good job of that, too. (And many of those media outlets have also grossly misrepresented many events relevant to those conflicts — including ones where I know very well that they were misrepresented because I witnessed them first-hand. For example, I watched the Rittenhouse trial live-streamed, and then read media coverage describing something barely recognizable as what I just saw.)
(Besides, it's not like they're trying to hide that "rt" stands for Russia Today.)
> The RT ban is not about what RT publishes, you are free to publish their arguments more or less verbatim on your own site without getting sanctioned in Europe (which indeed some people do).
Can you give a concrete example? (Somehow I cannot recall ever seeing one proactively volunteered, in years of people denigrating RT on the Internet.)
The Internet used to be cool in the '90 when it wasn't regulated and Meta, Google and Tiktok didn't exist. Now it's all ads, propaganda and hate speech.
Propaganda usually isn't banned, except in specific cases (defamation, hate speech, etc...). But AFAIK, RT is not special in that regard, it is just the kind of content one would expect from a website openly affiliated with Russian authorities.
Plenty of people have never seen moon hoax theorists' propaganda. They imagine if they see it, they'll quickly see through it for its absurdity. But they're often wrong. Moon hoax theorist's propaganda is actually much better than you think. They can point out lots of "inconsistencies", which do have an explanation, but aren't immediately obvious at all. You see they have experience meeting people like you, but you don't have experience meeting people like them.
I used moon hoaxers as an example because their sophisticated propaganda actually have been exposed and explained a few times, although it still isn't common knowledge why e.g. it seems the exact same rock is right behind an astronaut in two different photos. But that isn't nearly as true for suppressed ideologies. You haven't heard their arguments.
This sparked a discussion about how to handle hate spech, as for regular people being called a dick does not result in a 06:00 am. police raid with six officers.
In the aftermath, a mural in a left wing culture center has been painted over multiple times with the tweet and a call for his resignation [1].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/09/pimmelgate-g...
[2] https://images.welt.de/67dd7b08559c903aae8287ac/12efd9779a84...
My GAF meter is pretty low for anti-secular groups that shot first. And their own neighbours who were "supposed" to be their allied seem to think the same
Many of the real problems in society, unfortunately, have no easy solutions and require very substantive evaluation, weighing expert opinions, etc. In the current environment it has become very hard to get a lot of people to even consider these or, if they want, elect someone to do it in their stead.
TLDR: populism + propaganda causes significant dysfunction in democracies, especially ones that aren’t winner-takes-all.
> In 1964, The Pawnbroker, directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Rod Steiger, was initially rejected because of two scenes in which the actresses Linda Geiser and Thelma Oliver fully expose their breasts; and a sex scene between Oliver and Jaime Sánchez, which it described as "unacceptably sex suggestive and lustful." ... On a 6–3 vote, the MPAA granted the film an "exception" conditional on "reduction in the length of the scenes which the Production Code Administration found unapprovable." The exception to the code was granted as a "special and unique case", and was described by The New York Times at the time as "an unprecedented move that will not, however, set a precedent."[63] The requested reductions of nudity were minimal, and the outcome was viewed in the media as a victory for the film's producers.[62] The Pawnbroker was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. ...
See also https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ix309/e... .
The whole idea of supressing stupidity in a democracy leads to some sort of elitist society.
These are all the exact same arguments made by regimes like the CCP as to why their authoritarian methods are necessary. It’s all for the public order and the public good as unfortunately, many people are stirred up even against their own interest by meddlers, demagogues, and foreign interests. Fortunately, the CCP knows better, as the Party makes sure that the experts are making decisions based on all the data.
I would prefer to live in a democracy, and it astounds me to see people in the West repeating word for word what Russians and Chinese regime apologists say about their governments, all while explaining it’s all necessary to protect democracy.
Sorry, I'm more confortable with RT being blocked than having another Adolf Hitler screaming their own propaganda.
Screw Russia and China. The Internet blocking committee should probably also block Tiktok while they're at it, as it makes people's brains rot.
This is the same argument as for encryption. You can't have encryption only for the good guys and not for the criminals. You either have encryption that protects everyone including criminals or you have no encryption.
In this case, you can't have free speech while advocating for censorship against what you consider to be propaganda.
Either everyone has the right to express themselves, including pro war lunatics or you right to free speech will eventually go extinct because then it's only a matter of time before someone else will use the same argument to start censoring a topic or an idea that you care about and they will do it the with the same zeal as you when you agreed to censor RT.
Yet despite this fact that has been proven time and time again, here we are in 2025 with people like you who applaud censorship.
There were and are plenty of reasonable groups one could work with, but the genocide is about grabbing land, asserting dominance and exacting revenge, while feeding a victimhood complex that is never able to acknowledge its own mistakes.
> Somehow I cannot recall ever seeing one proactively volunteered
I err on the side of brevity, not seeing a claim that RT's removal was unjust in the comment I was responding to, I felt no need to justify it myself.
I used to be a hardline freedom of information defender, but we must face the fact that humanity has become way too good at manufactoring opinions and even facts. We're exposed to this threat at all levels, from your local company invading your feed with hidden ads in legitimate tiktok content to nation states influencing your political worldview.
Considering yourself immune to this manipulation is as naive as thinking you don't need vaccines - depressingly, we've far beyond the point where individual protection is enough.
As opposed to your positions. The masses, well, they think wrong, but you, you thought long and hard about everything and you came to the right conclusions.
What's next? Give the right to vote only to the "right" people?
After all, if you can't trust the judgment of the masses because their views are based mainly on emotional reasons then surely you don't think they should have a say in how their country should be run?
Is that really a good example? Weimar Germany regularly suppressed and censored Nazi newspapers and publications, shut down hundreds of Nazi newspapers, and even at one point suppressed party gatherings.[1] Obviously, it did not work, and the Nazis used the same laws and precedent to suppress their enemies when they took power, and were able to campaign with statements like "in all of Germany, why are WE silenced?"
You can take two things away from this:
1. Weimar should have suppressed the Nazis EVEN HARDER. Weimar needed an even more stringent censorship regime, shutting down any publication and arresting the editors at the slightest whiff of wrongthink. They should have deployed informers to identify and arrest dissidents before they broke out into the public arena.
OR
2. Weimar Germany was a deeply unpopular and dysfunctional regime that had already failed. Governments should do better to represent the interests of their people so that things never get to that point. The Nazis would never have obtained any power if Germany had been doing well and people felt represented by their government, no matter what kind of crazy propaganda they put out; people don't choose extremism because of propaganda, they become propagandized when they are deeply disaffected. Censorship only further delegitimized the regime and increased the popularity of the Nazis, as it showed they were a threat to the people in power that were perceived to be mismanaging the country.
[1] https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/wo...
It's pure hypocrisy coupled with conformity - or rather virtue signalling. Send junk weapons to Ukraine to showcase that you do support the cause, meanwhile keep buying gas the same time go after their propaganda because that looks nice.
There are literally thousands of cases constantly of different severity, but freedom looks different to me. https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/habeck-beleidigu...
When that happens, you won't be happy anymore and you will go on Twitter complaining that your government is turning fascist in a hurry and ask how nobody did anything to stop this.
But you probably think that it's never going to happen because you are one of the good people, not the scum of the earth that dares watching Tiktok.
Consider the cost of the sites I listed. Literally, how do you pay these companies? With the monetization of your attention, first and foremost. Good journalism costs money to produce, leaving good journalists unable to be the highest bidder.
Just think about this (which is not 100% correct, but for the sake of discussion): it's probably not meta, google and tiktok. It's the internet peoples who are the source of all that. It's peoples who say hate, who push for ideas they believe in, and they also (surprise!) publish ads! (While google et cetera are just a medium, with lots of moderation, yep.).
What do you prefer instead, to make domain registrars enforce sanctions instead of blocking on DNS level? That would quickly make so that no one with Russian passport is able to register a domain no matter how much we are against russia or putin
If it had been more effective, more people would become very impressed the first time they came across a new to them, consistent (more or less!) narrative universe in which the bad guys are the good guys. Not only that, but their narrative incorporates a bunch of entirely true, verifiable damning truths about "our" side.
there's nothing wrong with this. Stable democracies tend to be republican and elitist. One of the reasons why the US has been, until recently, an exceptionally stable country was because decision making was largely insulated from the whims of the public. Democracy properly understood is best used as a tool for legitimacy and as a check against the worst abuses of power, not actually as a tool for decision making.
Having the inmates run the asylum is generally a bad idea, we've known this since Plato.
And it happened in Bavaria, not the biggest fans of the Green party, so it‘s a little bit strange that the state attorney went with a raid.
The thing I referred to in my previous comment is more of a historical thing before smart TVs and similar tech. Current RF technology is still just an evolution of the same signals sent 70+ years ago. So they’d moderate content via scheduling. “Terrestrial TV” still works that way today.
You are presenting an argument and I am pointing out the flaws in it.
I am also presenting the logical conclusion of your argument that maybe you were not comfortable making in your original comment, that is that a certain part of the population is not capable of thinking rationally and therefore, someone else must decide what they should be able to see, hear and read because otherwise they may make the "wrong" choices.
That, in turn implies that their votes could be also swayed by emotional reasons, so if you think that these people are not capable of making up their own mind about the issues that we face today, then surely, you are not fine with having them express their opinion in the voting booth.
> But clearly populism combined with propaganda isn’t working out either in a number of countries.
So your solution to populism is to refrain the population from accessing views that you find problematic?
> I realize very well the problems of following this line of thought
I don't think you do because if you did then you would know that having the state decide what citizens should have the right to see or hear is exactly the same kind of rhetoric that authoritarian regimes use today.
> Should we just stop thinking about causes and what could be done about it, because it’s uncomfortable to think about it?
I don't think anyone is feeling uncomfortable looking at the many issues that the western democracies are facing today.
I am uncomfortable however when someone thinks that the solution to these problems is to go down the path of censorship because sooner or later someone will use the same excuse to start censoring political opponents/ so-called undesirable views in the name of saving democracies or protecting the children or fighting terrorism as it has been seen time and time again.
The solution to the views that you find problematic such as the ones expressed on RT is not found in the reduction of free speech, it is done through education and demonstration of the facts.
I don't have a side in terms of a political entity or official, I'm defending evidence-based action. I genuinely think my life is better because I don't have to defend anyone uncritically, but you're welcome to try and change my mind I guess lol
Where did you heard it?
It is not only factually incorrect, every point is just completely wrong: no favorable candidate to Moscow was elected in 2014, US did not worked to undermine democracy and there is absolutely zero evidence of both of these things happened.
This is what RT and other propaganda networks is dangerous, it creates a fake reality which people believe in. Then you act on this knowledge as if it is real.
Just because two things superficially share some traits doesn't mean they are equivalent, at all. "Full-blown warfare against their own populations" is a bit dramatic, don't you think? As a German, I can tell you, while the government doesn't much act to my benefit, I am not exactly at war with them either. Intelligence, military and police don't have the competence or power, either. Most importantly, like in many proper democracies, there is a plurality of opinions and oversight in parliament, which prevents this sort of thing at scale. "Full-blown warfare" would imply a grand conspiracy, that's simply not factual.
Apart from the UK, Hungary and Poland, I think that's true for most western countries. The US is a bit exceptional, of course, since... well, I don't know what the fuck they are smoking there.
At first sight, I don't see how the FOIA is much different to the Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (freedom of information law). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informationsfreiheitsgesetz
Isn't the FOIA also applied on the federal level?
> In Germany, you are generally not allowed to film law enforcement
I think this is misleading. It's not especially prohibited. Generally, law enforcement enjoys the same rights as everyone else, that is having a right to privacy and the confidentiality of the spoken, non-public word. You can't film law enforcement folks preemptively, or without cause, if they have the reasonable expectation of confidentiality of the spoken word. If law enforcement is breaking the law, you are allowed to collect video evidence. In any case, you are not allowed to publish non-public video recordings or pictures of anyone, taken without explicit, or implicit consent. Public or non-public here means the implied confidentiality of communication, not necessarily where it happened. Eg. talking on a public street doesn't make every conversation public.
Mind you, in Germany, illegally obtained evidence isn't as easily dismissed as it is in the US. If you record the police without cause (illegally) and they happen to commit a crime, your recording isn't tainted evidence as far as I know, but rather you may (if indicted) face legal consequences yourself, independently. Again, publication is a completely different matter.
Legality of video recordings is pretty much irrelevant, regarding the legal power dynamics you described, as the police could just confiscate your phone and find some excuse for destroying the evidence. Independent oversight seems more important to address this.
On the other hand, I do think law enforcement should enjoy privacy, generally, as everyone else. I don't think, having a camera in your face with every interaction is helpful for anyone, all things considered, but would rather aid escalation and discourage leniency. Constant video surveillance just sucks, no matter who is doing the recording.
There is no such thing as "understandable" when it comes to censorship, especially when it comes to Nazi imagery, and especially in Germany.
If there's actually one place where it needs to be remembered, it's absolutely there.
Israel definitely should be sanctioned till it stops its war crimes because doing nothing will directly affect us.
Ukraine is most definitely a part of Europe.
Moldova and Georgia and Ukraine, as relates to its aggression in Europe.
rt.com is banned within the EU (and YouTube), not just Germany. It's literally a propaganda outlet of the Russian government, hardly banned lightly, or merely because of dissenting political opinions. Unsurprisingly, Moscow took that ban quite personal. Russia apologists are literally sitting in the German parliament right now. So much for censoring opposing political opinions.
Bit of a reach claiming Germany isn't part of the general internet isn't it?
This is as pointless as saying that is my role as a consumer to test the food that I buy to ensure it is not contaminated with shit, so instead of punishing the companies that have contaminated food we should allow them to sell if even if we know it contains literal shit and instead teach our children in school how to use equipment to test the food.
Sorry for the Ruzzian puppets but soem countries are not retarded and they decided to block the toxic food today and not ignore the victims, as I said in the original comments we have laws and the fact that you are from Ruzzia should not put you above our laws, RT shoudl stay banned until they open a local branch where we can apply the fine to them equaly as we apply to our own media.
Also there are a lot of Ruzzian money wasted on social media to spread actual fake shit, priovable fake shit that I think we need to really go further in identifying the source of behind those fake crap and arrest, fine and sanction the individuals behind that shit, no level of education can just make a person intelligent or make them do investigative work to confirm that some information that he really, really loves is in fact false.
And I know some fascist here will claim that trush is not objective, and my response is that a photoshoped document is 100% fake in all natural logic systems. The strategy used in Romanian presidential campaign by the Ruzzian aligned side was to put faked documents or information on social media then have media people share in on social media and then bringt the faked document in discussion on TV.
So don't cry for the regular idiot they still get their conspiracies and faked information from Ruzzia on social media and sometimes even in the mail, as an example they sent people faked official looking letters that they are getting called to military service to go and fight in Ukraine.
So please freedom of media but there must be consequences for external media not only for local one.
Israel should be sanctioned because of the war crimes and the genocide perpetrated by their government, I agree, but that's a different thing.
The only safer places are heavily moderated hobby related forums with actual people. Anti vaxxing is not a hobby btw.
Right, so my local TV gets fined if they published something fake, like for example they had a news about some bullshit happening in Romania but they were showing a video from a different country, the TV claimed it was stupidity and not manipulation, they got fined.
So I want RT and other media to respect the exact same laws, if they do not want to respect our laws and continue to publish fake shit we block them until they pay their fines and start respecting the laws.
And trust me there is no communism censorship here in Romania, the TV is terrible still , you get tons of commercial to shitty suppliments and gambling, you get politicians presenting their bullshit conspiracies, you get the hosts claiming that Soros is doing everything that is wrong in the country and this days also Macron and France are big villains (because they upset Putin and the Zeds are super, duper butt hurt )), you can see ladies presenting themselves as "doctors in energy-shit-karma-bullshit" and claiming the vaccines caused a giant number of allergies and other crap that she and her company with ehr supplements will sell.
We still let people to be idiots but we need to not be idiots like a society and let paid and organized attacks on our population to continue, and we need to do more against this state organized attacks. (as I mentioned previously but maybe in other comment faked documents were sent by mail to people, this is clearly a state sponsored action, they had names and addresses, they falsified documents and then paid for physical mail delivery to make it look more authentic )
Also you say that my information about filming law enforcement is misleading, but then you make a legal analysis and conclude that even when you consider all these facts, you can still be charged for illegally obtained evidence. For me, what you describe is very much the same as it is not allowed to film law enforcement by de facto.
And yes, I think you have a side, and I think these groups' foreign policies are 1. Very far from being simply "evidence based" and 2. Not in any meaningful sense under democratic control.
Have you ever wondered why so many people actually turn up to vote for Putin in Russia, even though they don't really influence anything by doing so?
I think they have simply decided that it's easier to want what they can have. Learn to like the taste of the only course that's on the menu.
And I also think that attitude is very common in the western world.
Information wasn't censored, deliberate misinformation was. The German democracy is set up to be resisting forces which threaten it's very existence. RT's mission was not set out to inform the German population with journalistic integrity, but using false reports meant to destroy the social fabric of an enemy state (from Moscow's perspective).
Quite funny you mentioned "Hitler's diary", which is a fabrication as well. Also not censored... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Diaries
As for bomb making, yeah sorry, you can't get field instructions how to make something you are not allowed to produce, use or have. The chemistry isn't banned tho. Maybe try wikipedia or a library?
Yes, law enforcement officers should be allowed to have e.g. confidential conversations with each other. Just like you do (or should have) chatting with your work colleagues.
> so I guess you are against body cameras then.
I am conflicted, because I don't want to be filmed during police interactions, either. It really depends on the legal setup. If they are mandatory, encrypted, only readable with a court orders, always on, not fed into the general surveillance stream (AI shit, face recognition), reliable and tamper proof, I am in favor of them, I guess. That is, if they are useful to hold officers accountable, as well. Pretty utopic, tho.
However, regarding the officers privacy they are fundamentally different than a right to film law enforcement without cause, in any "public" situation.
> For me, what you describe is very much the same as it is not allowed to film law enforcement by de facto.
Yes, but not because they are law enforcement. You can also be charged for illegally filming anyone else.
Eg. dash cams as used around the world are also not legal in Germany. They have to be constructed to loop a short time interval and only retain the recording in case of an accident. You can't continuously record traffic or public life in Germany.
Personally, I think it's quite awesome you got legal leverage against someone filming, or surveilling you against your will.
I also agree that law enforcement should be able to hold confidential conversations. That is why body cameras come with an option to be switched off, giving officers discretion over when to record and when not to.
The real problem, however, is that in Germany there is no legal foundation for filming in the other direction. If you believe an officer is misbehaving, you are generally not allowed to record the misconduct. Even if the device operates on a short loop and automatically deletes older footage, an officer can still legally instruct you to turn it off. That creates a significant issue.
In the United States, it would be unthinkable for law enforcement to approach a journalist or cameraman in a public space and demand they stop filming.
See that's the problem. I don't want convenient malfunctions and "Uppsie, forgot to switch it on". If it doesn't cut both ways, then there is very little benefit IMO.
> If you believe an officer is misbehaving, you are generally not allowed to record the misconduct.
I think, you are allowed to record illegal acts by the police, or anyone (to collect evidence, not publish/share). It's a bit like a citizen arrest... you are liable for misjudgment of the situation. And plenty of people started filming before anything illegal happened. But in any case, I don't think legal consequences are too severe, so when in doubt deactivate biometric unlocking, press record and keep your distance.
The real problem is... the police got the power. If they are dicks, there is little you can do about it. Legal or not, if they get you, you lose. Legal or not, if you get away, there is a chance for justice.
Far, far more important than recording, would be truly independent investigations into police misconduct and violence, better witness protection for inside sources and harsher punishment for covering/lying for your colleagues.
> In the United States, it would be unthinkable for law enforcement to approach a journalist or cameraman in a public space and demand they stop filming.
Does this happen in Germany? Never heard of it and I doubt it's legal, if it happens. AFAIK in the US anyone can record anyone in public, no?
Finally, I think it's important to acknowledge the vast, vast difference in police violence between the US and Germany. Cops tend to be dicks everywhere, but it's not even the same sport in comparison. So does the recording help? I've seen plenty nasty shit bodycam footage and consequences are rare, aren't they? At this point, I don't see much pressure for recording reforms in Germany, tbh. Independent investigations is far more important.
Yes, it does happen, mostly to YouTubers who are filming in public, which is perfectly legal in the U.S. These YouTubers are legally speaking independent journalist, they do not work for a big news organization, but work for themselves and investigative with their own cameras in public, again perfectly legal in the U.S.
In Germany the police has stopped famous YouTubers in the past for doing so. There is plenty of discussion on that on social media.
One quote from the community: "Yes, German regulations are the strictest in the free world."
https://www.reddit.com/r/berlin/comments/8eslik/comment/dxxp...
Related Topic from news media coverage: "The US [human rights] report claimed there were serious restrictions on freedom of expression in Germany"
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-rejects-us-censorship-claims-i...
So it is indeed an issue and the public is already aware of it.
If "YouTubers" are journalists, then everyone is a journalist. The point about proper press is, they know what's allowed and what isn't, when you need to ask for permission, when to blur a face.
> So it is indeed an issue and the public is already aware of it.
Am I the public? Cause, I am super happy people can't just film and publish me walking in public. I have to get out, to get food, to work and stuff, doesn't mean my life is a public affair. Considering AI and big data, I am extra happy about "these strictest regulations in the free world". Speaking of, there is no freedom under surveillance and Germany is kinda an authority on that matter...
Or is JD Vance the public? Lol. Got a problem people can't express themselves here, like they did in 1933, but sure on US' doubleplusfree turf, trans people got outlawed, "DEI" folks erased from history and people expressing tattoos, or melanin are getting kidnapped by blessed masked men in unmarked vehicles. You can fly the NSDAP flag in the US, but can't disrespect the American one, cause that's inciting violence. Classroom bible, but empty shelves in the library, under his eye. US human rights report calling out people protesting the genocide as credible reports of antisemitic violence – well, let's call some reporters in Gaza to confirm these allegations... weird, no one is picking up. Funkloch or F-35? Did the US also object when the communist party got banned here? Verfassungsfeind-schmeind, says Werner von Braun. Bit one sided and oddly programmatic this report, don't you think?
And reporting live from Minneapolis, just because something is perfectly legal in the US, doesn't mean it's best practice. Tomorrow, crisis actors caught in 4k by an independent journalist...
It ain't all bueno in Germany, not at all, but the US most certainly isn't the gauge for anything.
In a way, yes. That is what freedom of the press means, and it is a core principle of the Western world. Anyone can start a blog, write articles, take photos, make videos, and share them publicly. That is, and should remain, legal. No authority can decide who qualifies as a journalist.
There are no official press credentials in law either. The passes that some news agencies issue are simply pieces of paper with no legal weight, because press freedom is a fundamental right for every citizen.
The idea that someone cannot be a journalist simply because they are not part of a large agency is mistaken. It is just as mistaken to assume that independent journalists will automatically act irresponsibly.
> Am I the public? Cause, I am super happy people can't just film and publish me walking in public.
There is no expectation of privacy in public. Of course no one can come to you and hold their camera in your face. That's not allowed. But if you happen to be walking around and there's some news agency or journalist that has a camera on to something else (again in public) like a tourist attraction, then of course you will be on their film and they do not have to ask you before putting it on YouTube.
Taking a photo, or making a video doesn't make me a journalist. Adhering to "journalistische Sorgfaltspflicht" is a legal requirement.
> Eine zentrale Anforderung an die Presse ist die Einhaltung der publizistischen oder journalistischen Sorgfaltspflicht bei der Berichterstattung. Es handelt sich um einen allgemeinen medienrechtlichen Grundsatz, der für verkörperte Presseerzeugnisse in den Pressegesetzen der Länder gesetzlich verankert ist.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presserecht
> Persönlichkeitsrechte > Die Presse achtet das Privatleben des Menschen und seine informationelle Selbstbestimmung. Ist aber sein Verhalten von öffentlichem Interesse, so kann es in der Presse erörtert werden. Bei einer identifizierenden Berichterstattung muss das Informationsinteresse der Öffentlichkeit die schutzwürdigen Interessen von Betroffenen überwiegen; bloße Sensationsinteressen rechtfertigen keine identifizierende Berichterstattung. Soweit eine Anonymisierung geboten ist, muss sie wirksam sein.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressekodex
> There is no expectation of privacy in public.
The expectation of privacy and being in "public" are somewhat independent things, as explained earlier. The threshold isn't just "in your face", but if someone is identifiable or not.
> Taking a photo, or making a video doesn't make me a journalist. Adhering to "journalistische Sorgfaltspflicht" is a legal requirement.
Again, I am telling you that YouTubers have been ordered by the police to stop filming in public.
The same assumption was made about them as you are making now ("Oh, boy..."), namely that they would not adhere to journalistic due diligence. But assuming that someone might not behave lawfully is not a crime. I cannot simply call the police on someone and say, "I think this person is suspicious and will commit a crime by filming in pubic" and then expect the police to issue unlawful orders based on that assumption. That is not how the law works.
It is actually the other way around: you must assume that an independent journalist (including YouTubers) follows journalistic due diligence. Only if he or she publishes a video without proper blurring or in violation of due diligence can you engage a lawyer to take action. Otherwise, the presumption of innocence applies.
> Otherwise, the presumption of innocence applies
No, the police is allowed act on experience and context. Eg. "racial profiling" is legal in certain areas.
> The same assumption was made about them as you are making now ("Oh, boy...")
The Oh boy was due to the US human rights report reference, implying people in Germany care no less. Doubtfully in good faith, otherwise such a wild thing to bring up/fall for in 2025. I mean, praising the US as a bastion of democratic virtue is frankly insane. "Two" party system, gerrymandering, banned books, religious/political indoctrination of children, limited bodily self-determination and -expression, secret courts, total surveillance, no rule of law, press banned, killing of journalists, blatant misinformation and erasure/rewriting unpleasant history, .... But yeah, great you can legally buy everything you need to shoot up a school and legally mock the victims afterwards. The hustle more sacred than voting.
Honestly, their take on "press freedom" you praised, what does it amount to in your opinion? Because to me, sure enough, "truth" means nothing to freedom, if you neglect the bigger picture, which makes information actionable. Germany does far, far better with the bigger picture. It's straight dishonest to get hung up on some single incidences, which may, or may not have happened.
And looking forward, the laws around freedom of press didn't think of YouTube, Twitch and TikTok, when written. Information traveled slower, lies could be exposed and corrected. In today's world, we need to figure out a way to deal with Russian troll farms, Heritage Foundation campaigns, billionaire hubris, and algorithms enslaving people's minds. Exposure isn't any longer the corrective factor, but outreach and attention is. A large chunk of the population is already caught in some kind of alternative reality, completely immune to facts and reason.
I am off, good luck.
I think we now agree that if such incidents did occur, you acknowledge that charges could be pressed. However, I may not have made my point clearly enough. My intention was not to highlight random YouTuber incidents, but to draw attention to misconduct by officials in the course of their duties and our restrictions/regulations.
For example, just four days ago the headline read: "97 Bundeswehr soldiers dismissed for right-wing extremism." [1]
We could argue that the Bundeswehr is not law enforcement, but there have been similar right-wing issues within police departments, where officers have shared extremist content. What I want to emphasize is that this is not about single incidents, but about a growing systemic issue of misconduct in law enforcement. And those who could provide the strongest proof of such misconduct - through video evidence - (journalists) are often prohibited from doing so.
> Did those YouTubers press charges?
Imagine your word against two or more officers. Who will the judges believe? Most likely the officers, unless you have very strong proof, such as video evidence. I hope my point is clearer now: this is not about isolated incidents, but about a broader systemic problem, fueled by the growing popularity of right-wing views within law enforcement and our harsh restrictions and regulations, which are strictest in the free world. It is the combination of both which is dangerous.
[1]: https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/wdr/bundeswehr-rechts...
Why worry about hypotheticals? Lol.
I mean yeah, all very concerning, but you are shifting the narrative, moving the goalpost a lot, now. It's frustrating and doesn't paint you as someone interested in honest exploration of a topic. Quite frankly, that's the only point made clear.
But if you scroll all the way up to my first comment I said:
> In Germany, you are generally not allowed to film law enforcement. If someone feels they have been treated "unfairly", good luck to prove that in court when two officers present a completely different version of event ...
And in my last comment about the matter I said:
> Imagine your word against two or more officers. Who will the judges believe? Most likely the officers, unless you have very strong proof, such as video evidence. I hope my point is clearer now ...
I would say this pretty much matches very well, YMMV