back to article Google Germany slammed for Neo-Nazi YouTube clips

The German public broadcaster has decided to "do a Panorama" by highlighting YouTube's hosting of Neo-Nazi clips and World War II propaganda films. Reuters reports that tonight's Report Mainz on the SDR channel will go big on banned footage of Nazi rock band Landser and excerpts from 1940s race hate film Jud Suess, among others …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Freedom of Speech...

    ...means sometimes hearing things you don't like; either because they are a difficult truth, or are simply reactionary, hate-filled balls.

    But either way, freedom of speech is freedom of speech. It's can't be free and restricted at the same time.

    I believe you have run stories in the past about the EU in-roads into restricting free speech.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    freedom of speech pt2

    " . . . where the footage is specifically banned in law."

    Not EU law but specifically German, I believe.

  3. amanfromAlphaCentauri

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    (shock horror)

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    illegal is illegal

    There are incitement to racial hatred laws in the UK too. I'm sure all of the Americans would say this is the Europeans not having a constitution blah, blah.

    However, what the US govt allow a YouTube video of how to build bombs from easily obtainable materials which will go through port checks? Or how about a dummies guide to hijacking and piloting a passenger jet?

    Or camera-phone footage of the internals of the Pentagon?

    Freedom of speech (pt1 and 2) both have to have limits...for the good of the majority...sad but true.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bigger threat to viewers than posters?

    It is easy to end up on a page you never intended. End up on a how-to-make-a-bomb for dummies video and you happen to be brown then you could be detained without charge before you know it.

  6. Joe

    Following the law

    So if the issue was one of a major corporation owning copyright in a clip (and therefore they're hosting it illegally) they'll pull it in a heartbeat.

    But when it's a case of the content being illegal (and therefore they're hosting it illegally) they leave it on for a year?

    On a separate note, aren't those kitsch 30s and 40s Nazi propaganda films are of historic value? Surely nobody would take them seriously today!

  7. Pete James

    Defending this with freedom of speech???????

    The 20th Century history of Germany will take a long time to be shown accurately to the German people, let alone taught properly beyond "we won the war" lessons in primary schools here in the UK. To make comments that this is an issue of freedom of speech is ignorant of the specific problems faced by Germany; just as there were many people who did not vote for the tyranny of Nazism, so today's society tries to protect itself from a repeat of indoctrination of such ideals.

    Besides, I struggle to see how the freedom of speech is a valid argument when applied to deliberate acts of human suffering. Can you?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Joe

    You'd be surprised. Saddened and surprised.

  9. Scott Earle

    Double Standard?

    Well, a few months ago YouTube were in hot water in Thailand because some bright spark had posted some videos criticising the King of Thailand. At the time, the general opinion in the press was that the Thais were over-reacting and that YouTube was effectively "making a stand" for free speech. But now it's neo-Nazis and racist content that is against the law in Germany, all of a sudden people are siding *against* YouTube?

    I don't quite get it - it should not make a difference which country's laws are getting broken, surely?

    Scott in Bangkok, who can still not read YouTube content because it has been blocked ever since.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He who would forget the past....

    will be condemned to repeat it.

  11. John A Blackley

    Googleoops

    This, I think, is an indicator of Google making an error in paying so much to purchase YouTube. Leaving aside all the above blather about 'freedom of speech' (there is no such thing as absolute freedom of speech), there are pitfalls galore in Google's path.

    Of course, pitfall #1 is the 'deep pockets' syndrome. Having paid so much for YT, Google demonstrated that they're worth suing. Pitfall #2 is the workforce required to admin. the sites. (It's no use playing the "but I'm only hosting it, guv" card. No government is going to go after Helmut Von Schmuck in an attic in Lenz if it can garner favorable headlines - and votes - by taking on a global company instead.) Pitfall #3 is how to make money with a reputation that's being chipped away. If Google continues to be associated with paedophiles, Nazis and, by giving in to them, totalitarian governments, who is going to want to advertise on their sites?

  12. andy

    re: Defending this with freedom of speech???????

    "Besides, I struggle to see how the freedom of speech is a valid argument when applied to deliberate acts of human suffering. Can you?"

    Yes. Freedom of speech means exactly what it says - you are free to speak about whatever you want - even if applied to deliberate acts of human suffering.

    The minute you start restricting things every two-bit interest group wants a piece of the action and pretty soon the restrictions affect you as well. Better to let some twats spout off once in a while than start ruining things for everyone else.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hard to Defend Nazis

    It is hard to defend a group of people who like Adolf Hitler, and think blue eyed blond arians are the master race. Perhaps there are some who want the return of the buzz bomb in the UK or yearn for mass murdering all the Jews. It is not something I can endorse. Speech which encourages violence (Except against Terrorists) will not be tolerated.

    Wonder if that means I am a Fascist.

    I am so confused . . .

  14. Andrew

    I think they have a sense of humour about it...

    After all, The Producers got a release in germany, as did fawlty towers 'moose' episode. Eventually :-)

    - A

  15. Graham Marsden

    Hard to defend who...?

    Freedom of Speech doesn't mean defending Nazis, in fact quite the opposite!

    The Nazis were quite happy to deny the right of freedom of speech to anyone who said anything that they didn't like.

    Should we now emulate them...?

  16. Alex

    Maybe...

    ...people should try and look at the cause of this whole comeback for fascism and whatnot. why does everyone try to go for the symptoms instead? (btw i have no idea what the root cause would be :P)

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a shame !

    Aside of a minor typo - it is Volksverhetzung with a capital 'V' - as ex-German I may well question Pete James. From both sides. WWII has ended 62 years ago, and so did Nazi-Germany. Still, a few years ago, British TV was happily showing the supremacy of the Allies vs. the dumbo nazis. Oswald Mosley was hailed in the British Papers throughout his life ('Not the 9 o'clock News').

    No, I can't support censorship. Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is still banned in Germany, and only last year an academician pointed out that he could not reference it due to the criminal law. Actually, I retrieved it, at the age of 50 I had it in my hands for the first time. Trying to read it, I found it horribly written, bad, bloated German. I can only recommend that it be made available for everyone to see its lack of quality throughout.

    At the same time, me, who always adored England for its democratic attitude from Magna Carta to whatever, these days I'd rather leave the place. Your stupid majority has permitted some hare-brained self-serving little Napoleons to dismantle 800 years of democratic tradition within one generation.

    /No chance to take my coat.

  18. Scott Swarthout

    I can see why...

    Germany would want to be seen as opposed to these videos. Germany's image in relation to Jews/minorities is still derived from WWII. They have to be aggressive in reacting to these kinds of things, so that they don't, by inaction, strengthen the view that they are anti-minority.

    Having said that: The Nazi party was first and foremost a Fascist regime. They used the people's nascent xenophobia and desperation for a scapegoat to rise to power. The US (and UK, deny it as you will) are following the same path.

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