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Kinda makes me want to join social media and meme the hell out of German government officials.

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This is a good idea. Why can't "We" fight for 1A through the means of social media from our comfortable seats?

I guess they can click the switch and disallow the likes of us, but something tells me we are smarter than the switch.

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"Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated," says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid

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Sort of like how the Muslim invaders of Europe shout down any opposition?

Not because of Fee Speech, but exactly the opposite. They will use Germany's own laws to stifle dissent, and arrest anyone who speaks out against their abuses.

In the interview, she claims that 50% of German Internet users are afraid to state their opinions online.

Well, duh! If it were illegal in the US to state things online, 90% of us would be afraid.

I am pretty sure we will see a call for a new constitution by the liberal wing of the USA. They have to muddy our history, demean our history and train how we view the current constitution. They have their message out on the 2nd, but now the need to destroy the 1st. In reality, not many citizens know anything beyond that. If they ever get that leverage, we will be Great Britain + Germany's social engineering on a hyper level. All in the hope of Utopia. If you don't believe in it, then you get the Moa treatment.

---end rant.

Jonathan Turley's commentary on the importance of J.D. Vance's speech

criticizing our Euro " allies" on their attacks against free speech. It's worth a read.

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/02/17/the-threat-from-within-j-d-vance-delivers-a-historic-defense-of-free-speech/

will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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Hmmm, where have we seen these thoughts on the ashpiles of history?

Ironic it's coming out of one such historical example in Germany.

Farmer_J said:

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If Kamala won, it would be happening here. It was already starting.

This is nothing unique to the brits or europeans.

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Democracy is no longer rule by the people, according to western political leaders.

It now means rule by experts or an epistocracy. Our betters surely know better than the people. The experts just happen to know which speech should be free and which speech should be disallowed and punished.

will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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Ok, as long as you let me be the sole arbiter of what "hate speech" is because if you think I am letting someone else decide you can f yourself. If you want me to tell you what you can and cannot say though I guess I can do that.

The US is quite unique in that we have the First Amendment. Few other countries have that tradition, much less one that is Constitutionally prescribed.

It does seem quite ironic that countries having a robust Parliamentary system wherein arguing is part of the process, to criminalize political speech.

They have good intentions, and thats what matters to progessive/liberals.

random thought this morning about this: would I trade some "freedom of speech" if it meant that all politicians, advertisers, media members, actually anyone/organization that has potentially broad influence would be held accountable for incorrect information that they publicly say or publish - eg they would have to publicly retract it and apologize? (I know - who gets to decide what's incorrect)

will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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We do have libel, slander and defamation laws.
A very careful strengthening of these laws needs to be taken. Need to be sure in the wording that these laws would not be misused by the lawfare crowd.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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"Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated," says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid

---

Sort of like how the Muslim invaders of Europe shout down any opposition?

Not because of Fee Speech, but exactly the opposite. They will use Germany's own laws to stifle dissent, and arrest anyone who speaks out against their abuses.

In the interview, she claims that 50% of German Internet users are afraid to state their opinions online.

Well, duh! If it were illegal in the US to state things online, 90% of us would be afraid.

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I think "fee speech" a slogan used extensively by USAID employees and the NGOs they funded.

You can take the German out of Nazi Germany, but you can't take Nazi Germany out of the German.

aggie93 said:

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will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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Ok, as long as you let me be the sole arbiter of what "hate speech" is because if you think I am letting someone else decide you can f yourself. If you want me to tell you what you can and cannot say though I guess I can do that.

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The only possible criteria would be greater limits on threatening speech from the powerful, not the powerless. Congressmen calling for violence is different from a guy in an alley doing it. But not even sure if want that. Much prefer punishments for crimes once done being very deterring.

titan said:

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aggie93 said:

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will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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Ok, as long as you let me be the sole arbiter of what "hate speech" is because if you think I am letting someone else decide you can f yourself. If you want me to tell you what you can and cannot say though I guess I can do that.

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The only possible criteria would be greater limits on threatening speech from the powerful, not the powerless. Congressmen calling for violence is different from a guy in an alley doing it. But not even sure if want that. Much prefer punishments for crimes once done being very deterring.

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Obviously the only sustainable solution is true free speech. For people like this tyrant though the only way you can get them to see that is to have fear that the power they are seizing gets used against tehem which it inevitably will.

Germany outlawing free speech again. I'm sure that will end well.

japantiger said:

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Germany outlawing free speech again. I'm sure that will end well.

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It's the only Reich thing to do.

Remember when a silly video was blamed for the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi? Then Obama chastised Romney for calling it a terrorist attack?

They had liberals calling for limits on free speech since it was obvious the video was so terribly distressing.

Germany submits the highest number of legal demands for user data to X within the European Union, with ~87% of these requests targeting speech-related offenses. X believes that these legal demands for user data are unlawful and has taken cases in both German federal and state…

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) February 17, 2025

When SCOTUS said flag burning was covered as free speech, I decided anything at all can be free speech.

Ag87H2O said:

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Sadly, it sounds like Germany is headed down the same path as they did 80 years ago. All they lack is a charismatic, tyrannical, controlling public figure to take the reigns and hello 4th Reich.

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.

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Nothing would be scarier than a hormone dripping ****** Hitler

What the hell is wrong with the EU? They have gone mad over there, bunch of idiots

Azul88 said:

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Another reason to be thankful every day that my ancestors left.

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The smart and brave Europeans all left in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the mass exodus of such individuals, the continent fell into a state chaos. They had to send their sons and grandsons back over to straighten the old continent out.

Hate and hatefulness are always in the eye of the beholder. No hateful speech, in and of itself, is or should be unlawful, just in very poor taste. If used to incite a riot it would be unlawful. The words should never matter unless they cause unlawful actions.

Perhaps it should be unlawful to say anything in public using a microphone or bullhorn, which are used to transform free speech into words designed to incite unlawful actions. This idea would have the added benefit of eliminating many, if not all political speeches.

Just consider, is there any political speech, which isn't considered hateful by a large segment of the public?

gonemaroon said:

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USAID paid for these policies and paid for their "unfree" speech.

They were on the cusp one more election and no Elon from brainwashing the American people that free speech was a bad thing.

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This can't be said enough.

Thank God for Mike Benz publicly laying out the details on how the the US, utilizing USAID, NGO's, carve outs, etc was funding and supporting all of this. Thank God Trump and Elon paid attention, and focused their initial efforts on USAID. They had to cut the head off of the censorship snake first, otherwise much of their effort would have been neutralized by all forms of media.

Obviously they're still trying, but it seems to me they've resorted to throwing hail Mary's. This 61 minutes piece shows just how far they're willing to go to convince the other 55% of us that censorship is good.

Who?mikejones! said:

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Democracy is no longer rule by the people, according to western political leaders.

It now means rule by experts or an epistocracy. Our betters surely know better than the people. The experts just happen to know which speech should be free and which speech should be disallowed and punished.

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This is correct, but it's not just political leaders. My MIL thinks this way. We were discussing freedom of speech and she said some longer winded version of "I believe in freedom of speech buuuuut…you shouldn't have the right to offend people etc."

I tried all the typical counterpoints, especially "who decides?" She then argues that speech should be limited and regulated like everything else is. Of course, I point out that that would mean we don't actually have freedom of speech. I had to end the debate after she said "when you really think about it, freedom is a lot like slavery."

I thought for certain she was trolling me at this point but she wasn't. She never does that sort of thing. Apparently, she hasn't read 1984 and wasn't aware that was a central point from the book.

Her thought process goes like this: true freedom would mean too many choices. People would choose to do bad things. Therefore we need to "create guide rails" as she put it. IOW, we need other people to choose for people so that they don't make bad decisions. It's a perfect example of circular logic but that's what they believe.

They don't realize how naive they are because they don't think they've ever said anything wrong. To them, free speech isn't all that important because they further naively assume that they'll never say something wrong. It doesn't occur to them that whatever speech is permitted/acceptable might change and someday they could end up on the "wrong" side.

🚨BREAKING🚨: Scottish police filmed applying “buffer zone” law to “silent vigil”, despite recent denials from the Scottish government! 👮‍♂️

“Am I committing an offence?”

“Yes, I believe you are conducting a silent vigil”

Vance was right. The law IS being misapplied to prayer!🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 pic.twitter.com/Gsm0x4yspM

— Lois McLatchie Miller (@LoisMcLatch) February 18, 2025

will25u said:

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“Free speech needs boundaries… Without boundaries, a very small group of people can rely on endless freedom to say anything that they want, while everyone else is scared and intimidated,” says Josephine Ballon, CEO of HateAid. https://t.co/YjlBa7YJ3s pic.twitter.com/xqI88oiiO2

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025

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Could they be scared of, I don't know, GOING TO ****ING JAIL?

Doubt they are scared of the words of there.

We should never do business with them, send home all the BMWs and Volkswagens until they have free speech.

X is challenging a decision from a judge in the Berlin Regional Court that egregiously undermines our fundamental right to due process and threatens the privacy rights and free speech of our users. 

Two organizations, Democracy Reporting International and Gesellschaft für…

— Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) February 18, 2025