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Comment by apparent | Hacker News Reader

Whereas in Germany, one can have their house raided for calling a politician a dick (and be investigated for calling a politician fat). [1]

1: https://nypost.com/2025/02/21/world-news/germans-cant-insult...

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Even if there is truth to this, we sure won't find it at the NYP.

It's always good to verify. I noticed that that author is Rikki Schlott, who co-authored a book with the CEO of FIRE, and who also writes for Reason.

If what she has reported here isn't true, feel free to let us all know. Otherwise, it seems that truth can sometimes be found at the NYP.

> Germans are being arrested for insulting politicians

Is there any evidence that they were actually arrested? What I found was that there was an investigation but not that there have been any arrests made.

https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/justiz/hamburg-wohnungsdurch...

Sounds like the search of the apartment was ruled disproportionate and unlawful. But no arrests were made.

No one said anyone was arrested. But regardless, the fact that these raids/investigations happened has a strong chilling effect on speech.

> No one said anyone was arrested

Literally the NYP headline of the article my comment was a response to.

Oh sorry, when I said "no one" I meant no one here. You're right that the NYP headline is not accurate, since it only refers to an arrest of an Australian, not any Germans.

So system failed. Arrests should have been made. For everyone involved on side of doing search.

I don't know that there were any arrests, which is why I didn't use the word. Instead I provided the descriptions of what happened to them. Not as bad as arrest, but still pretty frightening that these things could happen as a result of such innocuous comments. It's not like they were calling for violence against the politicians or doxxing their families or something.

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