The German state’s crackdown on online hate speech is straight out of the Orwellian playbook. At around 6 a.m. this morning, hundreds of people across Germany awoke to police officers at their door. Their only ‘crime’ is to have openly made critical or offensive comments on the internet, many about specific politicians. This is not a scene from the Third Reich or the German Democratic Republic, but from the Federal Republic in the 21st Century. Officers from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) intend to make approximately 170 house visits today, to investigate ‘hateful’ or insulting comments made online. Suspects have had their tablets, laptops, and phones confiscated, and their homes searched. This operation has been taking place annually for several years now, to enforce paragraph 188 of the German criminal code. This was amended in 2021 to make it a criminal offence to insult a political figure, punishable by a maximum sentence of three years in prison.
