SAP Founder Hasso Plattner Fears the Scourge of Social Media
msmash closer-look dept
In a wide-ranging interview, Hasso Plattner, the 74-year-old co-founder and chairman of global business software powerhouse SAP, talked about his apprehension of the social media. From the story: He saves his greatest condemnation for the scourge of fake news and societal manipulation on large socia...
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During the post World War II period, the West German media was subject to censorship by the Allied occupational forces. Criticism of the occupational forces and of the emerging government were not tolerated. Publications which were expected to have a negative effect on the general public were not printed. A list of over 30,000 titles, including works by such authors as Carl von Clausewitz, was drawn up. All the millions of copies of these books were to be confiscated and destroyed. The representative of the Military Directorate admitted that the order in principle was no different from the Nazi book burnings, although unlike the burnings, the measure was seen as a temporary part of the denazification program. [4]

When the official government, the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) took over, these limits were relaxed. The new German constitution guaranteed freedom of press, speech, and opinion. Since Germany kept the West German constitution after East Germany joined its jurisdiction, the same protections and restrictions in West Germany apply to contemporary Germany. However, continued globalization and the advent of Internet marketing present a new host of complications to German censorship and information laws.

Publications violating laws (e.g., such promoting Volksverhetzung or slander and libel) can be censored in today's Germany, with authors and publishers probable subjects to penalties. Strafgesetzbuch section 86a rather strictly prohibits the public display of "symbols of unconstitutional organizations" such as the NSDAP and affiliates. Materials written or printed by organizations ruled to be anti-constitutional, like the NSDAP or the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof Gang), have also been placed on the index. Public Holocaust denial is also prohibited and may be severely punished with up to five years in prison.[5] A decision of a court that assumes that a publication is violating another person's personal rights may also lead to censoring (a newspaper for example can be forced not to publish private pictures).

Whosoever, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace:

1. incites hatred against a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or

2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning an aforementioned group, segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population, or defaming segments of the population,

shall be liable to imprisonment from three months to five years.