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?”
