The posted article focuses on a new cultural wave of diplomacy in Germany and its surveillance of hate speech. A new law set forth to fine and prosecute hate speech mandates that private sites must get ride of any posts that are deemed hate speech or are overly offensive to specific users. If not, these sites will be fined heavily for allowing hate speech to remain on their platform. Furthermore, the article discusses the implications that may arise due to the new law since it is very new in the international scale. This law is in its infancy as it has only been active since 1 January.
Although it is difficult to define what hate speech can be, the power of mitigating hate speech is transferred from public agencies to the private agencies that have control of each website and its content. This is addressed as a double-edged sword in the sense that although hate speech is being mitigated, a new ideology of ‘what-can-I-post-anymore?’ may rise based on the fact that citizens may not have as free of a range to say what they want online. Further evidence focused on Rohingya citizens being driven out of the nation of Myanmar through loss of access to their Facebook accounts. Without a voice, anti-Rohingya propaganda can be shown without opposition in the nation of Myanmar. Likewise, more evidence of Iranian developers petitioning for Apple Inc. to stop banning Iranian apps as well as Rohingya’s censorship shows that censorship can be taken too far and limit the human rights of individuals.
The perspective in this article seems to take a non-biased perspective of simply reporting the new law. However, with only evidence showing the possible downside of this law can suggest that the author may lean towards a more ‘free speech’ type of expression. Further research on opinions in a BBC article titled Germany Starts Enforcing Hate Speech Law illicits public concern that free speech may be minimized due to this new law.
The BBC article can be found here: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42510868
Works Cited:
BBC. “Germany starts enforcing hate speech law.” BBC News, BBC, 1 Jan. 2018, www.bbc.com/news/technology-42510868.
Doctorow, Cory. “The Problem With Censorship is XXXXXXXXX.” 15 Jan. 2015, via Flicker, Budapest, Hungary, 28 Jan, 2018.
Report, Netizen. “Netizen Report: Germanys New Social Media Law Puts a Price on Hate Speech · Global Voices.” Global Voices, 10 Oct. 2017, globalvoices.org/2017/09/20/netizen-report-germanys-new-social-media-law-puts-a-price-on-hate-speech/.