Posted on 06/11/2026 7:01:05 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Nearly 5,000 criminal cases were launched last year against everyday citizens for criticizing politicians online. Germans have had enough.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz - ODD ANDERSEN / AFP.
The German Criminal Code’s controversial Section 188, which prohibits social media users from insulting or even criticizing politicians online, has become a hot topic in Germany again after a Facebook user was fined for over €2,000 for calling Chancellor Merz a “liar.”
Pollster INSA conducted a country-wide survey to discover what Germans actually think about the law, and found widespread opposition.
According to the poll, a plurality (43%) of Germans want the complete abolition of Section 188, seeing it as a ridiculous violation of free speech and the rule of law. Only 32% of respondents say it should be maintained, while 25% remained undecided or gave no answer.
The picture becomes much more nuanced when respondents are grouped along party lines. The divide is not so much between Left and Right, but more so between government and opposition voters.
Supporters of the national-conservative AfD and the libertarian FDP are the most against Section 188 (with 64% and 67% choosing abolition, respectively), but voters of the left-wing populist BSW (58%) and the far-left Linke (45%) also support abolition.
Meanwhile, supporters of the mainstream centrist parties, the ruling CDU and SPD, as well as the Greens, are more likely to support Section 188. This is especially true for CDU voters, 55% of whom want the law to be maintained.
Nothing surprising here, considering that it’s mostly government politicians who invoke the law against social media users, or whose alleged slander leads to prosecutors moving independently on their behalf.
Last year, there were nearly 4,800 criminal cases involving insults against politicians, up from 1,400 back in 2022.
One politician who has taken particular advantage of Section 188 is former vice-chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens, who reportedly filed over 800 complaints. These include for insults as tame as someone calling him a “moron,” which led to police raiding the accused man’s house.
In December last year, leaked documents showed that current chancellor Friedrich Merz has also filed “hundreds” of Section 188 complaints, although his spokesmen insist the chancellor has stopped doing this since coming to office last year. However, this did not stop authorities from prosecuting citizens just for calling him an “idiot” or a “fool”, or for posting a meme depicting him as Pinocchio.
Prosecutors argue that comments like these have “the potential for undermining confidence in the victim’s integrity, because [they were] liable to foster further negative prejudices or even aggression among like-minded individuals.”
One social media user commented: “The hammer in my toolbox also has the potential for smashing the Chancellor’s face, but that doesn’t automatically mean that’s what I use it for. What kind of justice system punishes ‘possibilities?’ […] You could also say that what the Chancellor is doing might have the potential (!) to drive the country into the ground. Is it punishable?”
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Do politicians get punished for criticizing the public or opposition party politicians?
politicians always FORGET who they work for
Their Deep State doesn’t care what the citizenry wants.
The citizenry needs to make them care.
Just 43% want the law scrapped!?
Politicians don’t care at all what the people want.
We want the SAVE act. Not going to happen.
We want term limits. Not going to happen.
Reference what Whitmer said:
“We’re used to people saying ‘f*** no’ and doing it anyway.”
They keep setting them up and the AfD keeps knocking ‘em down
🇩🇪👍
I heard that three different psychiatrists have judged Chancellor Merz to be criminally insane. And that because every evening he goes down into his basement and puts on a Stalin uniform. Then he screams at the little puppy dogs he keeps down there.
Oops! Have I just broken Germany’s Section 188? Probably. But that’s okay because I won’t be visiting Germany, ever. The place is too fascist for me.
😀
Germany hasn’t had freedom of speech since 1932.
Can saying you want the law scrapped get you fined for criticizing the government?
Repeal this law or I will taunt you a second time!
quit voting for collectivists
In December last year, leaked documents showed that current chancellor Friedrich Merz has also filed "hundreds" of Section 188 complaints, although his spokesmen insist the chancellor has stopped doing this since coming to office last year. However, this did not stop authorities from prosecuting citizens just for calling him an "idiot" or a "fool", or for posting a meme depicting him as Pinocchio.
Gosh, it almost sounds as if the Eurabian politicians don't like to be criticized for things like coddling Islamofascism.
Sometime in the summer of 1943 in Nazi Germany, a young woman from Berlin named Marianne Elise Kürchner was guillotined for telling a joke.
Kürchner, who worked at an armaments factory, told the following joke to a coworker who denounced her:
Hitler and Göring are standing atop the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on Berliners’ faces. So Göring says: “Why don’t you jump?”
As an aside, if the German people want to get these laws rescinded they should say that the politicians are trying to be like God, and that this is a religious insult. That way they can get the Muslims on board and it will be a done deal.
Politicians who passed such a law should be tarred and feathered as punishment and as a warning to others who might consider such a ridiculous thing.
Yes, it is hard to believe that a less than a vast majority would want such a law scrapped.
It is an obviously cold blooded violation of free speech.
It is a bold faced attempt of cement in place those that currently hold power.
It is a prohibition of open decent.
a Facebook user was fined for over €2,000 for calling Chancellor Merz a “liar.
Like everyone doesn't know that politicians are liars.
57% works in the deep state
What good are politicians if you can’t insult them?
This law comes directly from Germany’s asinine law forbidding folks from Holocaust denial. If someone wants to spew lies about obvious, and confirmable truth, let them. It huts them. Instead, the politicos censored speech, and then censored criticism. This is a natural course. Predictable. Designed.
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