[Draken93]

Turleys article is shallow and full of false assumptions.

He cites one Survey of 1283 people and thinks he can deduce the consequences of european hate-speech-laws from that. Despite the fact that I doubt that this small poll is representative, his assumptions are completly wrong.

What the by him cited article implies is that people are carefull with their opinion not because of laws but because of potential backslash from other people. Many people avoid controverse opinions because they want to avoid arguments. And the way the german question is written, this kind of avoidance is included. This has nothing to do with german laws.

If I read "I have long been a critic of the German laws prohibiting certain symbols and phrases" I am disgusted. Prohibiting the Swastika is part of historical responsibility we have as a society. That has nothing to do with free speech and the fact that turley implies that says alot about his mindset.

Luckily saying "Put all Jews in gas chambers" is not considered free speech here. We have to prevent on all means that history repeats itself. And the paradox of intolerance[1] is an important part of that.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[MikeUt]

contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. [..] Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27417789

[anigbrowl]

Streicher was indeed sentenced to (short) terms in prison but it's not recorded that he ever had to serve any of them, being able o take advantage of criminal amnesties and later the privileges of a Reichstag deputy.

https://www.bjpa.org/content/upload/bjpa/4_an/4_Anti-Semitis...

To be sure, courts are meant to handle individual or corporate matters, and not ideal or even effective in the maintenance of polities. But it is a mistake to compare the Weimer-era standards with current hate speech laws in Europe since theya re separated by the facts of WW2 and the Holocaust.