this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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Summary

Elon Musk livestreamed a conversation with Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, on his platform X, endorsing her and urging support for the AfD ahead of Germany’s February 23 election.

The livestream, which drew over 200,000 viewers, raised concerns across Europe about Musk’s influence in foreign politics.

AfD, under observation for extremism, has gained popularity amid discontent with Chancellor Scholz’s government.

Musk’s promotion of Weidel and controversial remarks on other European issues are being monitored for violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Germany has never had a problem with it before (post-WWII).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

What's the use of that information? They have that problem now.

It appears to be an internationally occurring problem.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No, I mean they have never had a problem limiting Nazi speech before.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Quite contrary, we have a big problem censoring Nazi speech.

We have some very specific rules when something can be censored and when it can't - and the far right has quite some training in "just not saying that, maybe only implicating it a little".

So any legal action outlawing then needs to rest on really solid legal basis or it will fail. Such a failure would be the propaganda the right wishes for.

Consequently they are always just shy of openly saying things but implying them. Like having election posters where their politicians can say "No we're not showing a Hitler salute in that image, we were just miming a roof of a house over a bunch of kids"

Sometimes a single politician gets caught with doing something too far, but then (of course) the whole party acts like they are shocked.

Getting rid of this shit is not easy, unfortunately. We can't censor what we don't like willy nilly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Getting rid of a platform who's owner is trying to influence your elections even though he isn't even a citizen is not "willy nilly" by any means.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I personally absolutely agree of getting rid of that shit. I just said there are big hurdles, and you need to do so in a very organized and based on proof way.

You can't just outlaw them because you don't like them, that doesn't work. Germany having laws against hate speech doesn't mean there's not also a law about freedom of expression in the Grundgesetz.

You need to prove them to be against democracy in a watertight way. That's what I mean with not willy-nilly.

Or as I read it once: Democracy implicitly protects its enemies.