I am kind of embarrassed that this news was broken to me by an American Youtuber. But this shows how under the rugs this law was passed. The resolution was passed as "Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz" which literally translates to law for the enforcement of net working. "Durchsetzung" can also mean to prevail against a strong force instead of "enforcement" though.
Official links
Here is a link to the law written in German http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/18/127/1812727.pdf
And a link to the official post of our parlament in german
https://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/textarchiv/2017/kw20-de-soziale-netzwerke/505074
sadly I was not able to find any English sources from my Government or other official outlets.
The TL;DR: German government can now sue facebook and youtube for hateful posts and hate is as subjectively translated in the text of the law that calling someone an asshole would be enough.
This flies under the argument of enforcing civil dialouge and even though I am in favor of civil debate, I never thought we Germans would file such a preposterous law. Illegal content is defined from actual hate speech (Volksverhetzung) to insults and as far as the beautifully vague word "disruption of public peace" which often means being nude or loud in German law making terms.
Thanks to my subscription to Phillip D Franco I first heard of this law. There is also more in his video than I touch on in this article.
I was always proud that we Germans only censored stuff that was literally Nazi-Propaganda. We do not censor cursing on TV. We only have some American censored music playing because the artists sometimes do not provide an uncensored video version of the track.
I will fight this law at every chance I get. I feel like our government is trying to ride on the German Conscience to put global platforms under censorship. I am sorry World
When we first met here on steemit and you mentioned Americans and problems with them. Now you know how I felt. I know my government is messed up and out of control. Yet I am an American. I don't blame you for your government doing stupid things. Why should I? I am very glad my friend that you'll be doing what you can on your end to counter such ignorance.
Really we already have the global governance these people are seeking. The only problem is that it does not require them to exist. They have a problem with that.
You and I discussing things as friends and cohorts when I speak to you I don't feel like an American talking to a German. I simply feel like a human speaking to another human friend.
Globalism has already happened to a large degree on the internet. Though it is far too free for the various governments liking.
Well, as you maybe I like to at least in a small part blame citizens for the action of their government. Of course it is hard to blame someone who actively campaigned for Ron Paul like you.
You as American have more influence on the US Government as me and I have more influence on the German Government. I think it is cases like this where we have to voice out as German people "We disagree with our government".
We have a very lively discussion over at the German post, even the pro-EU people (our version of Hillary Supporters), seem to disagree with the law. They see good intentions (I dont^^) in it, but they say the actual law with its vagueness, the 24h policy and leaving the actual censorship to private companies is a "catastrophical mistake" which bears "huge threats".
lol, the percentage voting bar was added for me today, now it is gone again... feelsbadman
Heh. Yeah looks like some soft fork was pushed last night. We no longer automatically by default up vote our own posts. So looks like they pushed something, perhaps it removed that. That needs to be available to everyone by default as far as I'm concerned.
well, I like that I can do 10 big votes if I want to but at some days when I read more I would like to have more smaller votes. It is also better for upvoting convos. Steemit seemed quite glitchy all day
I actually don't like the 10 big votes. It artificially let's people consolidate their wealth. I don't see it as actually particularly beneficial for steemit.
Those votes are at 4x steem power by the way. So if they were 1x steem power I could support 40 different people. 40 different posts at 100%.
I could do a lot more for the community, and trust me if your post is interesting and as you get followers you'd still make good money.
Though I can still do this... I just have to micromanage myself much more. If I set my slider to 25% I can vote 40 posts per day before tanking my steem power.
that is why I actually do not really see the downside. Ten votes give me a chance to actually read every post I vote and not just fly over it. It is tough to take time for reading 40 articles per day.
Yeah but that 40 also includes comments. I up vote comments to encourage discussion. Right now I just leave it at 1% to keep from blowing through my voting power because I am talking to people a lot. A lot more micro-managing is required since HF19 and it is not due to the linear curve. It is due to this 10 vote thing.
Also the 10 votes is you voting at 4 x your steem power on 10 posts. Why not just keep it linear? Why do people need 4 times their power on votes?
If you vote 10 votes at 100% without that then at least your voting power will regenerate faster, and the reward pool might not drain as quickly.
Government is the biggest society enemy. Every kind of speech must be allowed in a real free society, that's the reason i'm an anarcho capitalist. F%$k the state.
I am a libertarian. I just want my state to stop with all... 'these things'. It is hard to put in words if cursing is not allowed ^^.
Go Tobi Go :))
thanks for the cheers, Manjit :)