Feddit.org announced today that they are changing their rules to match German law despite their server not being hosted in Germany.
Feddit.org now bans:
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The sentence “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”
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Comparing Israel to the Nazis
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Calls to end Zionism
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Calling for the dissolution of Israel
And much more. The full original post can be found here, or
Click here for full text of original post:
Hi.
In the past few days, discontent regarding mod decisions in this community has been brewing, particularly when it comes to comments on Palestine, Israel, and Israeli politics and actions. There are also misunderstandings regarding mod intention and German law. We hope to clear that up with this post.
While the servers of feddit.org are in Austria, most of the mods of this community as well as admins of this server live in Germany. Speaking of, our server admins have also posted a write-up on the same topic.
And with that, let’s go:
In Germany, antisemitism is specifically sanctioned in German criminal law, both for speech and as a motivation for other criminal behavior. In addition, Germany seeks to protect the Jewish state of Israel (the so-called “Reason of State” introduced in 2008) and thus verges toward protecting Zionism as well. Certain criticism of Israel/Israelis is also categorized as “Israel-related antisemitism”.
Since criminal law is involved, enforcement can mean things like police raids and device confiscations. After such police action, it does not really matter if it was appropriate or if cases are dropped or never charged: The damage is done. All told, it’s not that fun.
There is also no point in engaging in discussions about the veracity of statements that could get us into legal trouble. In addition, we believe that you can express most opinions without breaking rules.
If your comment contains the following, it will be removed from this community:
- Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
- Calling for a destruction, annihilation, an end of all Zionism or the like.
- Equating Israeli actions and (historical) Nazism.
- The slogan “from the river…”
- Endorsement of or justifications for Hamas or Hezbollah, or slogans or graphics positively referring to these organizations. These are considered terrorist organizations in Germany.
- … and obviously: Any of the common antisemitic tropes or calls to violence against Jews or Israelis
Comments will not be removed for the following:
- Denouncing genocide.
- Denouncing Israeli war crimes.
- Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement.
- Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.
If your comment is removed nonetheless, these are not the reason. I’d also like to stress that this community was never a free-speech-absolutist zone: It is a (usually lightly) moderated community. There may also be times when bans go too far. In such cases, please DM the @EuroMod@feddit.org account (which all mods have access to).
To help you understand why, I'll leave an assortment of sources here (translations via DeepL).
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Berlin in mid-May [2024] around 6 o’clock in the morning. A loud, continuous “banging” against the apartment door wakes student Alina T. from her sleep. […] When her husband opens the door, several LKA officers, two employees of the district office and the SEK “storm” past him into the apartment. Puzzled, he looks at the search warrant. […] The background to this was a Facebook entry in the student’s profile: "From the river […]
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In November 2023, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Home Affairs also issued a prohibition order against Hamas.[60] According to the order, “the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ (in German or other languages)” is a distinguishing mark of Hamas[61]. […] the current legal situation [regarding “Denial of Israel’s right to exist”] is - contrary to what the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice suggest[63] - anything but clear. Whether incitements to eliminate the State of Israel are prosecuted depends on the respective legal opinion and the prosecution will of the respective public prosecutor’s office.
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Press release from the previous government:
In this context, Section 111 StGB, which covers public incitement to commit crimes, may also be relevant. Incitement to extinguish Israel’s existence by force may be punishable under this provision. The same applies to calls to publicly display the Hamas flag. If Hamas attacks are publicly cheered and celebrated, this may also be punishable. This means that people who cheer on Hamas’s actions or publicly express their sympathy with the attacks may constitute the criminal offence of “approval of criminal acts” under Section 140 of the German Criminal Code (StGB).
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In connection with the controversial Palestine Congress in Berlin, the German authorities have also imposed an entry ban on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. “In order to prevent antisemitic and anti-Israel propaganda at the event”, several entry bans have been issued, the news agency AFP learned from security sources on Sunday. One of these concerned Varoufakis. (Notably, Varoufakis would have spoken about one-state solutions …)
federal reverse (on behalf of the mods of !europe)
I think the post in itself is informational, many of the comments are not.
Post stays, comments get locked.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
Fuck the zionist genocidal bastards.
Elad Barashi, who has worked in the Israeli entertainment industry for several years, sparked outrage after posting on X: “Good morning, let there be a Shoa (Holocaust) in Gaza.”
In another post, he wrote, “I can’t understand the people here in the State of Israel who don’t want to fill Gaza with gas showers… or train cars… and finish this story! Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza.”
I hadn’t noticed how pro-cop some feddit.org users are but a cursory glance at people taking police reporting at face value and then openly defending cops punching people in the face with “it’s out of context” reasoning is just surreal.
It reeks to me of living in a bubble your whole life and never having experienced police repression - so your only response is “it can’t be the police, they’ve never done anything against me, it must be the protestors that are wrong”
Usually I’m one that hates leftist infighting but defacto trying to suppress a genocide because the “law says so” is rather weak. Still I totally understand wanting to protect yourself from repression but surely if you cared about both justice and your well being you would just hand over the community to someone else? Unless of course you actually agree with the “law”…
Calls to end Zionism
This one is egregious. I mean come on.
Hahaha YES DEFEDERATE THE FEDIVERSE
I got banned from that community for saying zionism is antisemitic. The mods called it “rage bait”.
I was actually testing whether the mods are zionists, and since they were enraged by my post, I think they are.
literally ragebaits Gets banned for ragebaiting Mods are zionists
Lmao
Just FYI. There’s truth to this, but this post headline is very clickbait.
You’re still allowed to do things like call out the genocide, call the Israeli government facist etc.
What you can’t do is stuff like call for a violent overthrow of the state of Israel.
(Which I disagree with because since the status quo is violence I think violence is justified in overturning it)
But anyways. It’s less extreme than the headline suggests.
And also it’s in an effort to comply with German laws. (Which again, I disagree with, but I’m not the one at risk of getting raided here so yeah).
Banning the call to dissolve the genocidal Israeli Apartheid would be akin to saying you can disagree with Donald Trump, but you are not allowed to say that he should be impeached.
Germans are not allowing the problem nor the solution to be named. Thus they live in a vague haze where both sides are guilty and there is seemingly no solution possible except the full genocide of all Palestinians.
Huh, the rules amendment in OP says that they can’t say the Israeli government is “expansionist” or “far-right”, why would “fascist” be okay?
Is you want to understand the spirit of the rules, look no further past the first one:
Calling for the dissolution of Israel, or calling for a one-state solution without specifying equal rights for all people; Jewish in particular.
Why Jewish in particular? How is “equal rights for all people” compatible with “one group of people in particular”?
Jewish supremacism, Israel and Zionism is Jewish ISIS, and trying to hide that part of Israel and punish any discourse around that problem is fascism.
They may let you call Israel fascist in passing, but they won’t let you describe its fascism, that is the bannable offense.
Equal rights for all, but with Jewish people being more equal than everyone else.
I get their concerns but we shouldn’t be bullied into silence. The Israeli government is a piece of shit and we should all be allowed to say that until they’ve proven otherwise.
From the text of their original post it sounds like you’re still allowed to say that. It’s worth reading the post text itself (not saying that to change your stance, I have complicated feelings about this choice by them, but knowing what they’re actually saying is worthwhile)
You can do anything except demand things which could meaningfully resolve the issue.
People are not being allowed to call for the dissolution of the Israeli Apartheid government.
Or compare its genocidal deeds to those for which the Germans say “never again”.
Because “never again” in Germany does not count for brown people.
People are only allowed to voice slight discontent with Israel. Forcing people to call a major crime a minor crime is a massive form of repression in itself and it serves to downplay reality, while pretending there is no censorship.
Calling a state criminal, expantionist, genocidal, brutal, saying that they should answer for their crimes, give back palestinian territories immediatly, be boycotted by the whole world, even be subject to military intervention is still perfectly fine, and that’s clearly not “slight discontent”. If you were conscious of this, you message is huge bad faith.
What they do not allow is calling for the end of Israel, in any way. That’s indeed a major crackdown on freedom of expression, but it does not leave you wordless for Israel criticism, unless your only goal is to be against Israel, and you don’t care being alongside Palestine.
I’m sorry but how does any of that not fit into “calls to end Zionism”?
So, what, you can describe what they’re doing but can’t say you want it to stop?
Zionism does not necessarily include exclusion, theft from, violence against, even less so mass murdering and genocide of Palestinians.
From what i know, and correct me if im wrong, Zionism at its root is the ideology pushing for Jews to live in the territory of Palestine and have autodetermination there. Ofc, a lot of the derivative include what i mentioned above, but not all of them : you can think of a country where both Palestinians and Israeli live peacefully, and it would still fall under Zionism, from what my limited perspective lets me know.
Zionism does not necessarily include exclusion, theft from, violence against, even less so mass murdering and genocide of Palestinians.
It absolutely does.
genocidal
Comparing Israel or Germany supporting it to the Nazis is banned.
give back palestinian territories immediatly
This is banned. Do you not understand that all of Israel is on Palestinian land or are you not willing to understand it?
even be subject to military intervention
This is banned too. Every group doing this gets designated as a “terrorist” group.
Genocidal : again, genocide is NOT a nazi-only thing. And yes it’s bad to not be able to equate, yet alone compare Nazis and Israel government. But you can still say ‘Israel is genocidal’.
Palestinian territories : this is my bad, not an expert on the matter + did not think through. I meant territories destined to Palestinians in previous two-state solutions and at least recent territory annexion. From what the message says, you can still say that.
Military intervention : you can support the intervention without supporting people doing it. Also, you can support official interventions of other countries instead of guerrillas groups. The fact that most of those groups use terrorists methods, like targetting civilians (yes, those one that Israel and most states in the world also use) does not help with terrorism part, and i think we all agree that there should be no support for hamas or hezbollah directly, though they fight for objective we should defend. (and yes, Israel is doing worse for religious and racist reasons too, and they have a kind of immunity partly because of the anti-antisemitism rethoric partly because they are a state and states are rarely condemned for use of terrorist tactics, all of this is compatible).
Little brother didn’t know all of Palestine is within Israel.
Maybe learn a little bit more before making such confident statements about it.
My fault is not ignorance, it’s blatant stupidity because i knew it. It’s also part of israeli propaganda that i fell for to think of palestinian territories that way. That’s bad and im grateful for people pointing it out. I’ll try to think more next time.
The rest sill stands.
I disagree with Feddit s decision, but you’re still allowed to say that.
Can we, as users, prevent our own posts and comments from federating to a given server?
They’re not banning me for my accusations of genocide; I’m Banning Them
You can block the instance, which I’ve just done. Fuck these Nazis
Y’all should actually read the post. They’re clear that they don’t want to do this but fear extreme repression by the German government, and they even listed examples of what exactly they’re trying to avoid. I’m no Israel apologist, but I’m convinced.
Feddit users commenting beneath it support this. One of them made this “meme”:
Feddit.org has also been banning users for things such as comparing Israel to the Nazis before they made this post. Then they owned up to it as their personal views. This is why they do not say they disagree with the German laws but they “do not wish to discuss it.”
Yeah fair enough.
I agree. Nobody should be risking their safety / livelihood / whatever to host a random internet discussion site. That doesn’t mean we should leave the situation as it is. I believe the main concern is to move off the !europe comm there and onto the new one at !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
This is the best solution.
Zionism is a fascist ideology. There is nothing to gain from hosting in a country where people feel compelled to suppress opposition to and liberation against that fascist ideology out of fear of incarceration and police brutality
Free Palestine
ACAB
I’ve read the post, and I’m still unhappy with their decision. Capitulation only accelerates fascism.
That’s true, but it’s still up to them whether they want to get arrested over social media comments somebody else made.
Sounds like you need to just make sure you’re specifying the current government of Israel and their actions, rather than the state of Israel in general terms or as a overall concept.
Comments will not be removed for the following: Denouncing genocide. • Denouncing Israeli war crimes. • Criticizing Zionism as an ideology or political movement. • Referring to the current Israeli government as “criminal,” “expansionist,” or “far-right”.
No, I got banned for criticising Zionism, and it was really clear I wasn’t attacking Jews, because I said zionism is antisemitic.
Removed by mod
Hand over control of the instance to someone else or shut it down completely.
Gonna mention that !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com has been set up as an alternative for Europe-centric discussions
With communities vulnerable to getting 86’d, I think hosting them on the incredibly strong dbzer instance is best. If it is leftist/non political and non tankie, it is very unlikely to be removed. dbzer FTW!
Thank you for linking!
germany making laws suppressing speech and criminalising free thought? never seen that before
EU is not America. Free speech has limits, that’s why we don’t end up with people like Trump
i was referring to germany in the 30s and 40s… but yeah, look at the governments of italy and hungary (and previously poland)
And Germany is not all of EU.
Hungary would like a word
Saint Babyrescuer compared to trump
Nah this entire thread is a perfect illustration why US First Amendment standards for free speech are (roughly) good and should be adopted in all countries. This is where it ends when you start to think it’s ok to criminalize “hate speech” or “terrorist propaganda” or “approval of criminal acts”.
You mean the place that has so much free speech that it currently investigating James Comey for sharing a picture of seashells on Instagram?
For clarity, thats never been protected speech
That is even more hypocritical than I’d have imagined! 🤦🤦🤦
Please read the post. Those laws are in place to stop neonazis and other idiots from making the holocaust seem like it wasn’t as terrible as it was.
The best way to prevent another Holocaust is to make it illegal for anyone to ever warn that anything happening is similar to the Holocaust or to the Nazis and should be stopped before it goes further. Brilliant. Genius.
These laws We are made to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Because Germany is weaponizing their previous genocide to justify their current one.
Removed by mod
Germany looking 80 years in the past like “let’s do that again.”
Israel is NOT a Jewish state, it’s a Neo-Nazi regime. If I wanted to kill as many jews as possible, I’d convince them that they “belong” in a tiny country surrounded by neighbours who want to destroy them.
