Few people know that before the outbreak of World War II there was heavy “collaboration” between Hollywood and the Nazi party. Indeed, Germany was one of the biggest foreign markets for films, so Hollywood was careful to ensure it did not make Germany look bad. Hollywood’s concern for Germany’s reputation became so strong that scripts and films were regularly sent to Nazi officials for approval before being brought onto the market or sent for production. Until 1940, there was not a single film that Hollywood produced that was critical of Hitler.
Free speech discouraged
It seems that Angela Merkel has decided to keep up this longstanding tradition of collaborating with foreign companies to prevent any dissenting views from being espoused. Last year, she was caught on live mic requesting Mark Zuckerberg to clean up Facebook so there would be no comments critical of the wave of refuges entering in Europe. This has the unintended consequence of preventing cultural criticism, but also the completely intended consequence of shielding Merkel’s biggest and most disliked public policy from commentary. This policy was also pushed onto Twitter and other social networking sites.
And yet, the censorship gets worse. More recently, German nationals produced a satirical song and poem which criticised the quasi Dictator of Turkey, Erdogan. But within this song and poem they also criticised Merkel’s relationship with Erdogan, which, over the years, has developed into a puppet/puppet master relationship (with Merkel as the puppet). Merkel is quite determined to continue her policy of acquiescing to Erdogan’s demands, so naturally, under an archaic piece of German law, she allowed a criminal investigation into the actions of these German comedians (under the behest of Erdogan).
Robust investigation into free speech
Merkel, however, has assured the public and the comedians that Germany has a robust justice system, and so there is nothing to fear from the investigation. But that is just the problem. The robustness of the legal system adds to the situation. This investigation will take years to complete, with taxpayers funding the investigation, while the comedic duo funds their own defence. In the end the process will be the punishment, and bit by bit freedom of speech will have a cost added to it. Sure, you will still be able to criticize politicians and policies, but only at $50,000 apiece.
Stalin once said, “Ideas are far more dangerous than guns. We don’t give people guns, so why would we let them have ideas?” Although Germany hasn’t gone so far as to illegalize ideas that are not compliant to the political whims of the day, it has created several mechanisms to ensure that they are discouraged and do not receive widespread coverage.