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)
Despite all the culture of remembrance, despite all the memorials and despite all the history lessons, the general public is simply not aware of how efficiently, ruthlessly and industrially the Nazis carried out the Holocaust.
At its peak, in Operation Reinhard, from April to November 1942, 2.5 million Jews were murdered. 10,000 every day. In specially built camps to which people were transported by rail and sent directly to the gas chambers, where there was practically no chance of survival. In Majdanek, over 18,000 people were murdered in 9 hours. By 1945, two thirds of European Jews had been murdered and in the end only the advance of the Allies prevented the rest from being murdered as well.
This is the much-vaunted singularity of the Holocaust, namely the systematic, industrial murder in special murder factories. This industrial rate of murder is unique in the long history of genocides. Stalin’s camps were cruel, but they were not extermination camps with gas chambers. This also applies to other genocides.
So if you honestly compare the Gaza War with the Holocaust, you quickly realize that it is something completely different. And anyone who seriously equates the two is trivializing the Holocaust to an extent that almost borders on Holocaust denial. This is guaranteed to lead someone here to call me a “genocide denier”, but: if Israel acted like the Nazis in the Gaza Strip, all the women and children would be dead by now and a few last surviving men would be maltreated to death as work slaves. And yes, we all know why Israel of all places is constantly compared to the Holocaust, even though there is no factual basis.
*automatically translated from a feddit.org user I very much agree with. Not citing the account to not disclose them to save them from brigading.
When somebody calls it the “Gaza WAR”, they are a Zionist and support the genocide in Gaza.
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They never said it’s not a genocide. They said its not the Holocaust. We all agree there is a genocide in Gaza carried out by a far-right Israeli government.
They never said it’s a matter of number. They halfly imply it though, i agree, but what they actually explicitly said is it’s a matter of it being systemic or not. It’s debatable, the use of daily bombing is both quite industrial and not as efficient as death camps, so it’s perfectly fine to target on that point. But do not hide behind the number things, which we all agree to be dumb, as a way to avoid considering the potential gaps in a comparison between Nazis and Israeli government.
I think it’s okay to say both have huge similarities that they never should have, but you don’t need them to be 100% the same for the point to be pertinent, so you can accept it when someone points out differences.
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Saying “the Israeli government is acting like Nazis” is not the same thing as saying that “the current genocide being perpertrated against the Palestinians is equivalent to the Holocaust”. The former sentence can be true regardless of the truth or falsity of the latter sentence.
While I think calling the Israeli government “Nazis” is a simplification and kind of weakens the meaning of the word Nazi, I absolutely agree with you.
Fair enough. People also use the term for e.g. american fascists. I think it would be reasonable these days treat the word as if it has two meanings, one historical, and one a more general synonym for “fascist”.
Did people have an issue with a particular Seinfeld episode ?