[gewa]

As a German I have to emphasize that this has no support at all in Germany. The uproar was huge today and its seen as a misuse of power by the politician. Especially as he is not acting as a politician but as representative of the public office of interior. The search warrant needs to be issued by a judge and I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened. I would not be surprised if he will be forced to resign. There are also elections happening and misuse of power is seen very badly throughout the people.

[aerosmile]

It's still a fact that in Germany you have to be careful how you express yourself. It was a total shock to me to arrive in the States and hear my cab driver unload on the US President at the time. He really wasn't choosing his words very carefully, to the point that I had to wonder if this was some kind of a test by the INS. I still chuckle today about how my views have changed since then, and how much more comfortable I am today with criticizing people, especially those in power.

[barbazoo]

> It's still a fact that in Germany you have to be careful how you express yourself.

Is that a fact? That's news to me. You might not hear as much "unloading" in Germany simply because it's not yet as polarized as it is in the US but certainly there wouldn't be any repercussions as far as I'm aware. What exactly are you talking about?

[HotHotLava]

A while ago a Berlin court decided that online posts saying "Drecksfotze"/"Schlampe"/"Knatter sie doch mal einer so richtig durch, bis sie wieder normal wird." (filthy cunt/bitch/someone fuck her hard until she becomes normal again) are still below the threshold that top politicians have to endure before they can sue for insult, so the ability to "unload" on top politicians doesn't seem to be in any danger in Germany.

Although this ruling was widely criticized, because there is some societal understanding that politicians are also humans who need some level of protection, and that unrestricted hate speech always has the potential to transform into physical violence sooner or later.

[kerng]

I'm not German, but I have noticed quite the opposite just yesterday actually:

Some non-german person posted a picture of Angela Merkel and highlighted how incredible she is and humble and all the good work she did and how she should be an example for their own (the posters) country and other politicians in the world.

The result: Lots of people agreed with the overall sentiment and applauded her achievements... well, besides German LinkedIn users, many went full "Reddit" (on LinkedIn)... Many "not nice words were written" by people using their professional profile - it was surreal to see.

[nyx-aiur]

Sorry but if you hear no one ranting about the german government you are just not going out a lot.

[nautilius]

‘Be careful how to express yourself’ is needlessly conspicuous. Never in my life have I seen anyone hold back to criticize politicians or people in power, most certainly not in some cab.

As I wrote somewhere else, if you think the first amendment gives you the possibility to say what you want to whom you want, without any consequences, go to the nearest policeman, start insulting him and his family. I am sure there will not be a problem, and he’ll sit through it for hours, if you just make clear you’re exercising your first amendment rights.

[y4mi]

When is the last time you were in Germany? Was it perhaps in the 80th around Berlin?

The only reason why it's rarely a topic is because people just don't care enough to start talking about it.

[foepys]

To expand on this: the politician is defending himself by saying that it is standard procedure for a case like this but I can assure you it is not.

The police is not taking insults seriously, especially not being called "dick". On Twitter some semi-famous people stated that they routinely go to the police because people threaten their lives but the police won't do anything.

One interesting fact that the politician is not mentioning is that he as a Senator des Innern (senator of interior of the state of Hamburg) can actually order the attorney general of their state to investigate something. This has been criticized by law experts multiple times in the past because it makes the judiciary branch not strictly independent from the legislative branch in Germany. No attorney general will deny a request of their boss and will instead push hard for a judge (who are independent) to sign a search warrant. Plus the Landgericht Hamburg (lowest court in Hamburg) has made some very, very questionable rulings in the past related to technology.

Everything here has written abuse of power all over it. It's a systemic failure that is being exploited and Andy Grote tries way too hard to deny it.

[kybernetyk]

As a German I have to say: this happens all the time. By this I mean police raids for minuscule infractions.

[thunfischbrot]

While it does happen, "all the time" seems to suggest it happens every week. I believe instead police raids on private homes for e.g. smaller drug related charges happen occasionally. This is the first case I hear of which is such an abuse of power about an insult online.

[AmericanChopper]

> I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened

It happened because you allowed your politicians to pass laws that regulate allowable speech, as many other countries have done. I’m sure it was controversial, but most likely also had a considerable amount of support from people who didn’t like the kinds of speech they thought this would criminalize. A distinctive feature of this case is that it has created a public controversy, but if this has happened you can be sure many people have already fallen victim to this injustice without drawing any sympathy from the general public. Even if there is no prosecution, the police have already succeeded in intimidating the victim, their children, and disrupting their life. This type of speech criminalization will always lead to this type of outcome. It is not a mistake, or an outlier, it is an unavoidable consequence of these policies.

[gewa]

It doesn't seem like you are very familiar with German politics or culture, but this is definitely an outlier. Freedom of speech is a central part of our constitution. Defamation is one of the very few ways and enforcement and interpretation is mostly restricted to defamation of policemen. This is the reason why this has resulted in an outcry as the proportionality does not respond to the interpretation how defamation is treated legally.