1.) Germany has civil laws giving a person depicted similar rights as the creator of an image. It is also an criminal offense publishing images, that are designt to damage an persons public image, Those aren’t perfect, mainly because there wording is outdated, but the more general legal sentiment is there.
Germany also has laws criminalizing insults. You can actually be prosecuted for calling someone an asshole, say. Americans tend to be horrified when they learn that. I wonder if feelings in that regard may be changing.
AFAIK, it is unusual, internationally, that the English legal tradition does not have defamation (damaging someone’s reputation/public image) as a criminal offense, but only as a civil wrong. I think Germany may be unusual in the other direction. Not sure.
2.) The police traces the origin through detective work. Social Cycles in schools aren’t that huge so p2p distribution is pretty traceable & publishing sites usually have ip-logs.
Ok, the police would interrogate the high-schoolers and demand to know who had the pictures, who made them, who shared them, etc… That would certainly be an important life lesson.
The police would also seize the records of internet services. I’d think some people would have concerns about the level of government surveillance here; perhaps that should be addressed.
How does that relate to encryption, for example? Some services may feel that they avoid a lot of bother and attract customers by not storing the relevant data. Should they be forced?
3.) It gives the police a reason to investigate, gives victims a tool to stop distribution & is a way to compensate the damages caused to victims
That’s what you want to happen. It does not consider what one would expect to actually happen. It’s fairly common for people of high school age to insult and defame each other. Does the German police commonly investigate this?
Int_not_found@feddit.de 7 months ago
I don’t care about the feelings of Americans reading this. Tbh
Germany is a western liberal democracy, same as the US.
On the other hand I’m horrified, that you seem to equate a quick insult with Deepfake-Porn of Minors.
Arguably the unrestricted access of government entities to this kind of data is higher in the US then the EU.
There are many entities that store data about you. Maybe the specific service doesn’t cooperate. But what about the server-hoster, maybe the ad-network, maybe the app-store, certainly the payment processor.
If the police can layout how that data can help solve the case, providers should & can be forced by judges to give out that data to an certain extent. Both in the US and the EU
Insults? No, those are mostly a civil matter not a criminal one (Deepfake-) Porn of Minors? Yes certainly
General_Effort@lemmy.world 7 months ago
What’s with the downvotes? Lemmy is usually pretty negative on the whole data gathering thing, I thought. Shouldn’t I have brought this up? I don’t get it.
General_Effort@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t. Maybe a language issue.
Yes. The GDPR in particular means that service providers may not be allowed to collect the data you want to use for prosecution. Which is one reason I brought this up.
It is refreshing to see someone who is not at all concerned about privacy. I usually feel that people are far too concerned about surveillance. I don’t remember the last time that I felt that a bit more concern would be good.
For purposes of enforcement, the degree of surveillance allowed/mandated is important. The copyright industry has a large financial interest in tracking data on the net. I’m pretty sure that German High Schoolers don’t have too much trouble pirating media. This shows that there are practical limits to enforcing bans on internet services and data sharing. Technologically, a lot more surveillance would be possible. It would cost money that would have to be paid with the internet bill and through higher costs of various services. It would also have a chilling effect on various aspects of civil society.
Discussing the pros and cons of total surveillance goes too far from the topic, I think.
The question is simply: How well do you want this to be enforced and are you willing to pay the price (not only in money)?
No, insults are firstly a criminal matter.