Wesseling. I have been an admin in the city group for ten years Wesseling active. I initially had the group to support the public relations work for the Accordion Orchestra Wesseling used to give cultural contributions a greater reach. During this voluntary work, one repeatedly comes across the question: What does freedom of opinion mean?
This is what the admin of a Facebook group hears most often when they intervene in the group according to the group rules that each member has actually agreed to? Be it a deletion or even a sanction for disinformation. You don’t respect freedom of expression. Article 5 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany is even used:
(1) Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate his or her opinion in words, writing and images and to obtain information from generally accessible sources without hindrance. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting through radio and film are guaranteed. Censorship does not take place.
Are admin decisions censorship, as is often claimed on the internet? Do deletions restrict freedom of expression? Then even opposing groups are founded with the additions: group of freedom of expression, group without borders or group without censorship … How netzpolitik.org that describes: actually that’s not true!
Fundamental rights always only bind the state, i.e. the judiciary, administration and legislation. Our Basic Law, however, does not recognize that private individuals, companies and corporations are directly bound by fundamental rights.
Anatol Stefanowitsch, professor for the structure of today’s English at the Free University of Berlin, has the “short and fleeting“summarized as follows:
What is really in the basic law:
Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate his or her opinion in words, in writing and in pictures […]. Censorship does not take place. [Art. 5, Abs. 1]
What many people believe that it is in the Basic Law:
Everyone has the right to freely express and disseminate his or her opinion in words, in writing and in pictures. There is no contradiction or ridicule.
Randall Patrick Munroe, an American comic writer and former NASA robotics operator and operator of the xkcd website, said this in his comic “Free Speech“very aptly, but also portrayed a bit evil:
There is also a German translation “Freedom of expression“, also by Anatol Stefanowitsch:
Interestingly, it is often right-wing populists and corona deniers who invoke freedom of expression in this way. They feel excluded if they are not allowed to tax their often hateful and anti-democratic opinion everywhere without comment or even to engage in targeted disinformation. They ask where democracy is, even if they attack democracy in the same breath. See the portrayal of Simone Rafael “Where is my freedom of expression here?“
It should therefore be the task of every administrator to intervene with every racist slogan, every comment hostile to refugees, every corona conspiracy theory or every defamation of politicians who make decisions to combat pandemics: in the best case, by contradicting something unreflected , but also by deletion or even by exclusion from the group. Because that is democratic culture!
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