The Kammergericht Berlin, highest state court of appeal in Berlin, has ruled that the online platform Linkedin can erase all entries that contradict the WHO and any government or government institution like the Robert Koch Institute. Constitutional Law expert Dietrich Murswiek has filed a challenge at the Federal Constitutional Court and told the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung that “we have seen this only in Orwell’s [book] 1984 and in arbitrary dictatorial regimes.”
The Berlin court has rejected a legal action by a Linkedin user, whose criticism of the government policy on Covid had been erased. Linkedin is among the few social media which, after Zuckenberg’s confession of bowing to massive government pressure against “disinformation” during the pandemics, refused to change its guidelines. Not only did Linkedin erase the user’s entry because of “false content,” but has also suspended his account.
“It is not a matter of whether the content is right or false,” Murswiek argued, “but only that it contradicts the opinion of the WHO. With that, the court grotesquely misjudged the meaning of free speech.” Murswiek is confident that the German Constitutional Court will reverse the ruling.
If the ruling is not reversed, however, “there would be dramatic consequences. It would be then possible to issue Truth-guidelines for all politically relevant domains of life; for economic policy, infrastructure planning, defense, environment, climate policy, social security. The government opinion would always be the ‘right‘ one, all that does not agree with it would be ‘disinformation‘ and therefore prohibited.”
Murswiek also addresses the case of Berlin author and Die Welt columnist Norbert Bolz, who was hit by a search warrant because of an ironic tweet that prosecutors interpreted according to their “truth.” A year and a half ago, Bolz had criticized the radical leftwing daily Tageszeitung (TAZ), comparing one of the daily’s headlines with the Nazi slogan “Germany, awake,” making fun of it. He wrote that “Germany awake” is the perfect translation of “woke.”
“Bolz used [the term] not from the standpoint of the Nazist regime, but exactly the contrary, as a criticism of tendencies that go in a totalitarian direction. To see this tweet as a criminal offense, is a clear violation of free speech.” Search warrants, such as in the case of Bolz, “are intimidations” and “judges should keep an eye on prosecutors and check thoroughly whether what they request is legally sustainable.”
