What does German law say about online threats using Social Media (Youtube)? I was watching a Youtube Video where a man calls on other people to kill a woman who burned the Quran and filmed it. I know it's not OK if you disrespect somone's religion, but no one has a right to kill you or call for other people to kill you just for burning a book, do they? I reported the video to YouTube and got the following response: Is this really accurate? Does this not constitute an illegal threat under German law?
YT has certain obligations under Germany’s hate speech law Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken. You can file complaints with a dedicated form. Per se, you are correct: The German penal code § 111 punishes public incitement to commit offences. However, as a prerequisite to any crime, German penal law must be applicable in the first place. Specifically, it is questionable whether the man (when shooting and/or uploading the video) is/was located in Germany at that time, § 3 StGB. Hence YT’s assessment was OK. Since January 1, 2021, (cf. 2020 Federal Gazette Ⅰ p. 2600) posting the same kind of video could be a crime via § 5 No. 5a lit. a StGB if the woman was at that time in Germany, or the man is a German citizen or the man usually resides in the FRG. In your particular case, though, it is irrelevant, because you’re judged by the criminal law that was in effect at that time, § 2 ⑴ StGB.
If you have sufficient grounds to fear that someone is about to infringe on one of your rights, you can go to court to obtain an injunction against that person. This is a court order to refrain from some particular action. In many cases, the point of this is just to have the legal debate on whether the anticipated action is actually legal or not before it happens rather than after. However, the punishment for violating the injunction is set by the relevant judge based on how important it is to dissuade the target from actually doing the thing, and how extensive the punishment needs to be in order to achieve this. After a few rounds of your guy doing the copyright infringement, getting an injunction against him doing it again should be quite straight-forward. And if he violates that, it would be reasonable to ask for a significantly higher fine next time, and then more, and more. Injunctions could also involve preparatory actions, eg prohibit the guy to even approach a computer, if this is deemed necessary to prevent reoffending.
This article is a useful introduction to restrictions on political advertising in the EU, where §3.4 (p 33) covers Italy. Silenzio elettorale is covered by art 9. of Norme per la disciplina della propaganda elettorale. The statutory situation is not entirely clear to me, but the main controlling fact relevant to the internet question is that AGCOM issues rules. An English legal analysis (from an Italian law firm) is here. Their undernourished analysis of the silence period is Finally, Italian legislation prohibits political propaganda on election day and on the day before. Although AGCOM is not competent for ascertaining infringements of said prohibition, it considers important to call everyone to turn the attention on these provisions. Indeed, they are important to guarantee effective protections of the constituents. As such, in the Authority’s opinion, the prohibition applies to all media. Clearly, the law applies to internet platforms. What is not clear is whether the prohibition as applied to web pages is against &quot;adding content&quot;, or does it require the elimination of previously-distributed content and scrubbing of links to such content. Perhaps the matter will be clarified in court one day.
I think that there won't be any trouble from Germany, but the US could be a problem if the girl reports the case to authorities. In that case, further details would depend on the state in question. As far as Germany is concerned, there are two sections in the penal code that could be relevant here: § 176 StGB - Sexual abuse of children § 182 StGB - Sexual abuse of juveniles To make things more complicated, we would also have to take into account juvenile penal law and whether Germany would have jurisdiction in the first place. 1) Jurisdiction: I'm not sure whether this case would fall into German jurisdiction under § 3 StGB as the case could be deemed to be committed in the US. However, in that case, Germany could still assume jurisdiction under § 5 item 8 StGB. 2) Since our guy was only 18, it would be at the discretion of the court to decide whether juvenile criminal law or regular criminal law is to be applied. In the former case, the sentence would be lower (if there is a sentence at all). But then we still have to figure out whether our guy broke a law in the first place. So first of all, let's take a look at § 176 StGB: “Section 176 Sexual abuse of children (1) Whoever performs sexual acts on a person under 14 years of age (child) or has the child perform sexual acts on them incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between six months and 10 years. (2) Whoever causes a child to perform sexual acts on a third person or has a third person perform sexual acts on the child incurs the same penalty. (3) In especially serious cases, the penalty is imprisonment for a term of at least one year. (4) Whoever 1. performs sexual acts in the presence of a child, 2. causes the child to perform sexual acts, unless the act is subject to a penalty under subsection (1) or subsection (2), 3. influences a child by way of material (section 11 (3)) or information and communication technologies a) in order to cause the child to perform sexual acts on or in the presence of the offender or a third person or to have the offender or a third person perform sexual acts on the child or b) in order to commit an offence under section 184b (1) no. 3 or under section 184b (3) or 4. influences a child by showing pornographic images or depictions, by playing pornographic audio recordings, making pornographic content available by way of information and communication technologies or pornographic speech incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years. (5) Whoever offers or promises to supply a child for an offence under subsections (1) to (4) or who arranges with another to commit such an offence incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term of between three months and five years. (6) The attempt is punishable; this does not apply to offences under subsection (4) nos. 3 and 4 and subsection (5).” Since the girl is 15 years old, this section is probably not relevant. However, to know for sure, we would need to know her exact age when contact started. If she was only 13 years and 11 months and contact lasted 1 year and 2 months, then § 176 might be relevant after all. That takes us to § 182. “Section 182 Sexual abuse of juveniles (1) Whoever abuses a person under 18 years of age by taking advantage of a predicament by 1. performing sexual acts on that person or having said person perform sexual acts on them or 2. causing the person to perform sexual acts on a third person or to have sexual acts performed on them by a third person incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or a fine. (2) A person over 18 years of age who abuses a person under 18 years of age by performing sexual acts on that person or having that person perform sexual acts on them for a consideration incurs the same penalty. (3) A person over 21 years of age who abuses a person under 16 years of age by 1. performing sexual acts on that person or having that person perform sexual acts on them or 2. causing that person to perform sexual acts on a third person or to have a third person perform sexual acts on that person, and thereby exploits the victim’s lack of capacity for sexual self-determination, incurs a penalty of imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or a fine. (4) The attempt is punishable. (5) In the cases under subsection (3), the offence is prosecuted only upon request, unless the prosecuting authority deems there to be a special public interest in prosecution which calls for ex officio intervention. (6) In the cases under subsections (1) to (3), the court may dispense with imposing a penalty pursuant to these provisions if, having regard to the conduct of the person against whom the offence was committed, the wrongfulness of the act is minor.” § 182 para. 1 StGB applies only to cases where the offender takes advantage of a predicament. I seriously doubt there's a predicament involved here. § 182 para. 2 StGB only applies for sexual acts for consideration, i. e. when money is being paid. Since apparantly there was no payment involved in this case, no problem here and we can go on to para. 3. § 182 para. 3 StGB only applies to cases where the victim lacks the capacity for self-determination and the offender is at least 21 years old. Neither is the case here. Summary: As far as Germany is concerned, there's no trouble to be expected under § 182 StGB. § 176 StGB might cause problems but only if the girl was under 14 when contact began. (You stated that she's 15. This could mean that she just turned 15 but was 13 years and 11 months when contact began.) As far as German law is concerned, it looks like our guy was overly cautious and there was no need to cut contact. From the US perspective, however, things will probably be different. I'm not familiar with US law but we would probably need to know the state in question.
can really anyone in Germany call the police on others without proof of anything? Anyone anywhere can call the police without proof of anything as long as they have a phone. The question is, what will the police do about it. Police in Germany are more professional and less corrupt than in many countries in the world (e.g. they are much less corrupt than police in much of the United States or police in Southern Italy or Mexico, or in much of the &quot;third-world&quot;). Most German police are unlikely to exercise their power unless they are genuinely deceived into thinking that you committed an actual crime. But, German cops are human too. Some German cops are bad cops and even good cops aren't perfect truth detectors or bias free. and if so what are my rights? There has to be some evidence to arrest you or prosecute you, but testimony from people who claim to be eye witnesses is a form of evidence and proof. People are routinely convicted of crimes (everywhere in the world) based solely upon the testimony of other people with no additional proof. This is usually a good rule. As a society we don't want the criminal justice system to let people who commit crimes that are witnessed by lots of truthful witnesses and testified to, to go free just because there is no non-testimonial evidence. But because people lie (or are simply mistaken about the truth) sometimes, it isn't a perfect way of determining who is guilty and who is innocent. You also have the right to lodge a complaint of criminal defamation with the police in Germany and in Germany hundreds of thousands of such cases are prosecuted by police every year. Making false accusations against you (or even just insulting you in an extremely offense manner) as they did is a minor crime in Germany. and the person I mentioned had 2 of his employees with him but I am sure and I know for a fact they are on his side and I had no witnesses with me so how can I prove I am innocent? if they agreed on making up a story against me? The possibility that people will be wrongfully arrested and wrongfully convicted of crimes because people lie and authorities believe the people who are lying is a constant risk. The best you can do is to tell your story consistently and honestly and hope that you are believed. But it is impossible to eliminate the risk that people will lie and be believed and that you will suffer the consequences, even if you are doing everything right. In the long run, you may want to avoid people who you think would lie and make false accusations around you, and to have the presence of either friendly witnesses and/or audio/visual recording at times when you are in their presence. You may also, as a long run strategy try to figure out if there was anything you could have done to prevent them from being out to get you so badly that they would make false accusations against you. While I don't want to blame the victim, and often enough, especially for example, if you are a foreigner or otherwise different in a homogeneous community some people are doing to hate you for no reason, sometimes their real motivation may be a failure to follow social norms that are not actually illegal, or a misunderstand that could be cleared up.
You won't be able to get around self-doxxing yourself. § 5 Abs 1 TMG requires tele-media service providers like you to list den Namen und die Anschrift, unter der sie niedergelassen sind the name and the address where they reside or are established Similarly, Art 13(1) GDPR requires you to provide the identity and the contact details of the controller In a German context, it is generally accepted that both of these involve a ladungsfähige Anschrift, i.e. a street address where you could be served with a lawsuit (not a post box). These requirements exist for both natural persons and legal entities, and for both businesses and non-commercial activities. The TMG Impressumspflicht talks about “geschäftsmäßige, in der Regel gegen Entgelt angebotene Telemedien” but in practice this only requires that the service could be paid (not that you're actually making any money), and that the service is offered routinely/business-like (not necessarily commercially). It does not matter where your service is hosted as long as you live in Germany. The TMG and GDPR might not apply if the forum is run purely privately, e.g. if it is only made available to a few close friends or family members.
It can (and has) been argued that some of the post-bellum trials of Germans and Japanese (but no Italians because they were Allies now) proceeded on shaky legal grounds. However, the arguments of your friend are wrong. In addition, many of the cases proceeded on solid legal foundations based on war crimes (e.g. the Commando Order) and treatment of prisoners-of-war (e.g. the Stalag-Luft III murders). Citizens and non-citizens are protected by the law and were even in Nazi Germany, albeit not equally. The Nuremberg Laws did not classify Jews as non-humans, merely as non-citizens (which is not to trivialise their awfulness). Superior orders has never been a recognised defence for criminal acts under civil or common law. The first recorded rejection of this defence was in the trial of Peter von Hagenbach in 1474. The roots of modern International Law can be traced to the 16th century and were definitely well advanced by the 19th, let alone the mid-20th. Nations accepted that international treaties and diplomacy were supported by international law and these included the Geneva Conventions of 1864, 1906 and 1929, since updated in 1949 (of which Germany was a signatory) among many others. In addition, since the Enabling Act (which instituted Hitler's dictatorship) was quite probably illegal, it can be reasonably argued that all actions that flowed from it (i.e. basically everything that the Nazi's were tried for) was illegal under German law.
The purpose of that disclaimer is not to prevent reprimands or legal action. It's really as simple as it appears -- it's to inform the readers that the tweets in fact contain the opinion of the person who wrote them and are not intended to be understood as the official position as that person's employer. This is especially important for people who occasionally or frequently convey their employer's official position. It's not supposed to be some kind of magic word that causes something to happen. It's just an attempt to convey accurate information and avoid misunderstandings.