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Comment by rbehrends | Hacker News Reader

This is actually not a real risk, because the German Federal Constitutional Court is generally not any fonder of content-based speech restrictions than the US Supreme Court (it is more permissive when it comes to content-neutral speech restrictions, however).

As I wrote elsewhere, the problem here is primarily not what the government does – because there are effective constitutional safeguards in place –, but what social media companies may do.

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The problem with your argument is that you're looking backwards at what the government has done to predict what it will do. What if someone like Trump is elected? Oh wait, there went that theory. How about what the south African government did or what the American dixiecrats would have done (further) if they had they power to suppress speech?

> The problem with your argument is that you're looking backwards at what the government has done to predict what it will do.

I am not predicting what the government will do. I am predicting what the Constitutional Court will do.

To be fair: That's the same thing. Counting on a system of humans keeping its stance regarding a certain topic while declaring laws is a recipe for disaster.

It's not the same thing. A constitutional court has independent judges bound only by their conscience, the constitution, and precedent, the government is answerable to its voters.

And if you actually get to a point where all these checks and balances do break down, you have much bigger worries than just suppression of speech (which at this point becomes just a further symptom of an autocratic or totalitarian regime, not its cause).

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