In our country, freedom is slowly being eroded. Bit by bit, a new culture of politically correct denunciation is spreading, partly promoted by the state, which is ensuring that the corridor of opinion is becoming narrower and narrower. This is an extremely dangerous development.
Key takeaways
1
The German state is fostering a "snitching culture" with online portals for reporting citizens over non-criminal, politically incorrect views.
2
This state-backed denunciation creates a climate of fear that directly threatens free speech, as even legal opinions can be officially reported.
3
Activist groups are now adopting this tactic, launching their own reporting portals and dangerously rebranding snitching as a heroic act.
Commentary By:
Michael von Foerster
Michael von Foerster is originally from Middle Franconia, but has been a happy resident of Berlin for decades. He works in the political arena in Berlin and observes the government district and its players at close quarters.
Digitalization is finally advancing rapidly in Germany. Resentment, envy, and moral finger-pointing are being digitized at a rapid pace in various ways. It is another step by our enlightened educational society toward quietly and insidiously snatching away people's freedom and personal responsibility. How so?
Citizens are currently being given access to various portals where they can report on their fellow citizens—if they wish to do so. A new culture of citizen participation has been established. This harbors a highly risky development.
This trend originated in Baden-Württemberg, where an anonymous tip-off portal was launched “in the fight for greater tax fairness.” The then CSU secretary-general Markus Blume once described this as “encouraged denunciation,” which sums up the situation impressively.
The black-green North Rhine-Westphalia government did not want to be left behind here either, albeit under different circumstances. Around a year ago, its government set itself the goal of initiating the establishment of a “nationwide unique network in the form of several reporting centers” in order to promote a more tolerant society.
This network will also analyze and document incidents “below the threshold of criminal liability” that do not appear in police statistics, according to a statement from the Green Party's Ministry for Children, Youth, Family, Equality, Refugees, and Integration.
On closer inspection, it becomes clear that such reporting centers can also be turned into instruments of discourse control. This is especially true when one considers that most of these reporting centers are very activist and politically biased. They often have a clear green-identitarian agenda. The boundaries between legitimate expression of opinion and discriminatory or even hateful statements are often blurred.
If the citizens of this country now have to fear that their statements will be reported by others to state and pre-state authorities and that they will then end up in a register, this must be regarded as a major obstacle to freedom of expression.
Does the state seriously want to use portals to support and disseminate its desired opinions in order to sow mistrust of undesirable views? This is an unacceptable situation in a democratic system that thrives on diversity of opinion.
However, it is often legally unclear which statements are classified as discriminatory or hateful and which are not. After all, this concerns cases that were not legally objectionable until now. This opens the door to arbitrariness.
This spring, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women, and Youth also upgraded its services and now operates the “Anti-Feminism Reporting Center.” However, women in distress have no recourse to this reporting portal if they are threatened with violence and danger. It is not about exposing crimes against women. Rather, this snitch portal allows people to defame and denounce others at the expense of the state if they speak out against gender issues.
The ministry is attempting to portray criticism of left-wing identity feminism as a criminal offense, even though statements against language regulations are clearly covered by freedom of expression.
The state is leading the way, and civil society actors now feel called upon to do the same, using the same methods to assert their interests.
For example, since the beginning of the year, restaurants have been required to offer a reusable option for takeaway food and drinks. However, some restaurants have been slow to comply with this obligation. Greenpeace has therefore launched a reporting portal to “support” the authorities in their monitoring tasks. Greenpeace even went so far as to declare potential block wardens “reporting heroes” on Twitter.
The protest was not long in coming, but Greenpeace remains unperturbed. The incident is symptomatic of how morally detached parts of this country already are. When informing on others is broadly reinterpreted as heroism, it says a lot about the state of our society.
Such a development is extremely dangerous and unworthy of our democracy if the invasive narrowing of discourse and the denigration of political opponents are increasingly used to enforce socio-political goals. It is therefore not surprising that, according to the Allensbach Institute's “Freedom Index 2022,” only 48 percent of Germans believe that they can freely express their opinions in this country. In a free democratic society, open discourse must be practiced and must not be suppressed by perfidious denunciatory portals.
Back in 2018, Katarina Barley, Vice President of the European Parliament, told the FAZ newspaper that an AfD reporting portal amounted to “organized denunciation,” which she described as a “tool of dictatorships.” How right she is.