@calaber24p great post, thanks for pointing out whats going on in my homeland.
It´s really very sad whats going on. Regarding the right of free speech, especially in the internet, germany is one of the most censored countries in the so-called liberal west.
It is very funny to hear our representatives criticizing other countries about the lack of freedom of speech. Very hypocritical !
Another bill put in force recently is that owners of a driver's license can face a withdrawal of their license to non-traffic delicts e.g. hate speech.
This has really tremendous effects. Because here in germany a lot depends on having an driving license, especially in the more rural areas.
Even if they don´t apply the law, just the fact that it could be applied will lead to a lot of self-censorship in advance of expressing critizism.
But i'm very hopeful that great projects like steem will help us to overcome the restrictions which are forced by the goverments upon us !