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That was literally 12 years ago and is not in effect and doesn't even have a German wikipedia page and the federal court would have nicked. Ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt!


No, the censorship laws in Germany are definitely still in effect. The petition in protest against them was 12 years ago.


You need to be more specific then, which law do you mean? Because the "Straftaten gegen die öffentliche Ordnung" is a whole section of the StGB which covers all sorts of things ranging from the prohibition of running an illegal online trading platform, to trespassing or leaving an accident. The closest is the Paragraph 131 which prohibits showing violence for the purpose of glorifying violence or to degrade the "Menschenwürde" (not sure what a good translation is).


Please see the paper linked in my sibling comment above:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29475379

(tl;dr: Germany censors harmless depictions of gory violence in video games.)


Science disagrees on you with the harmless part. It is shown that violent video games desensitise people with regards to violence, just as violent movies do except there is a categorical difference interactiveness.

I don't like that fact either but to ignore facts because they don't mesh with my politics is bad.


The primary argument I am making is that Germany lacks freedom of expression, not that depictions of violence in video games are or are not harmful.

Germany lacks freedom of expression.

This may be a concern (regulatory risk) for companies who are customers of hosting companies that are subject to German law.




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