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)
You are free to advocate for reforming the existing state into a multi-ethnic state with freedom of religion for all.
A state is nothing more than the sum of its parts and a lable. If you insist that the existing state needs to be destroyed first than that is against German law, and honestly I see no reason for that (other than that all states should be destroyed and not be replaced with other states ✊).
States rarely get destroyed, but sometimes they get absorbed and/or change their system of governance 🤷 South Africa still exists, as does Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) to name two examples that often come up in relation to Israel.
Israel is by its very construction an entho-nationalist state. I don’t simply advocate for freedom of religion, I advocate for the abolishing of all Jewish supremacist structures that makes up its government.
In my opinion it would no longer be recognizable as modern Israel, but they could keep the name if they’d like.
Note that calling for Zimbabwe/South Africa style change to Israel is also against the rule, as they made it clear in the comments that any calls for reform that include violence against Israel are forbidden.
Also no, Rhodesia does not still exist, that’s an absurd thing to say.
Removed by mod
The racist shit bag white supremecists that made up the Rhodesian government lost a civil war because they thought their skin color made them better fighters.
They were wrong.
Describing losing a civil war as continuity of government, especially for the pathetically inadequate white supremecists that made up Rhodesia’s ruling class, would only be done by another disgusting racist shit bag.
Get the fuck off of here you fucking racist.
Tagging you with ‘Rhodesia lover’
You are competely dellusional. I simply pointed out that according to international law Zimbabwe is the legal succesor state to Rhodesia and that formally there was a transition of government.
I am absolutely on your side that Rhodesia was a racist shit apartheit state, but facts are facts…
You are absolutely not “just pointing out” that
It explicitly is. Stop lying.
The revolutions in Zimbabwe were both performed by organizations that their opponents labeled as terrorists, because crackers label all violent opposition to them terrorism. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. You have just laid out exactly a general ban to discuss any non-peaceful resistance for Palestine, because that is terrorism, and you have indisputably confirmed that calling for South Africa or Zimbabwe style resistance is 100% against the rules.
And trying to claim that Zimbabwe is actually a continuation of the white supremacist British colony that was Rhodesia is the most racist fucking thing I’ve heard in a long time, and not surprising coming from a pro-fascist like yourself.
You need to learn to read what is actually written, and not just imagine some lala land interpretation that has nothing to do with reality.
And Zimbabwe is legally the continuation of the Rhodesian state, I didn’t claim anything else and please don’t insult others as racist just because you don’t understand what they are saying.
Right back at you, given you’re the one not reading whats actually written and imagining some lala land interpretation that has nothing to do with reality. But go on, keep lying. Show everyone how dishonest you fascist dogs are.
So calling for a violent overthrown of the Israeli government by indigenous Palestinians, recreating it as Palestinian state named Palestine that fully rebukes the colonialist settler state it replaces, that would be within the rules then? Because that’s what happened in Zimbabwe.
Everyone understands what you’re saying, racist, you’re not as sneaky as you think.
You seriously need to read up on the history of Zimbabwe because that is not what happened.
Oh fuck off. That’s exactly what happened, and you know it. At this point you’re just lying through your teeth.
You live in some lala land that has no resemblence to reality.
The existing governments both stopped existing.
Conflating Rhodesia with Zimbabwe in particular is just fucking disgusting and you should be ashamed for doing it.
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I’ve found you provably lying elsewhere in this post, so yeah.
Plus your response is stupid on the fucking face of it.
Because South Africa is still on the fucking map as South Africa does not mean there is continuity of government between Apartheid South Africa and the Government formed by the ANC.
If Hamas magically conquered Israel, and created a new constitution giving equal rights to all citizens and still called the country Israel, would it be the same country? No, it wouldn’t. That is how stupid your map argument is.
Given that you’re making the same argument for Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, where the name isn’t even the same… I can’t see any reason for doing so other the trying to white wash the racist horror that was Rhodesia. I mean fuck. The only people defending Rhodesia are the worst of the worst racist scum of humanity.
Guess that makes sense for someone defending the attempt to silence the discussion of Israels genocide.
You are just wrong. Try to educate yourself. The rebels in Rhodesia signed an official peace agreement with the old apartheit regime, and there was a formal transition of government. Something similar happened in South Africa with the ANC and there some of the previous rulers retained a political party and their successors are now part of a coalition government with the ANC.
I am not in any way endorsing those horrible apartheit regimes, but you are spouting so much factually incorrect non-sense that it is really pointless to discuss any further. I hope for you will never actually talk to someone from southern Africa about this because it would be incredibly embarrising to show so much ignorance.
That does indeed seem to be the case.