Has Europe’s crackdown on free speech become a bigger threat to democracy than ‘the extremists’ it seeks to contain?
By Jacob Mchangama
On the morning of November 26, three armed police officers showed up at the Berlin apartment of American playwright C.J. Hopkins. They presented a warrant, seized his computer, and questioned both him and his wife. The supposed threat to Germany’s Rechtsstaat? A self-published book cover. Hopkins, a cantankerousleftist critic of Covid-19 policies, had superimposed a faint swastika on a facemask to satirise what he saw as Germany’s authoritarian drift. For tweeting images of that cover, he was convicted last year of ‘disseminating pro-Nazi propaganda’. Now, despite that conviction, police have returned — this time apparently investigating him simply for having published the book cover at all.
If Hopkins’ case was an isolated incident, one could shrug it off as a regrettable instance of overreach that can happen in even the most speech-protective democracy. After all, in Tennessee, where I live, a man recently spent 37 days in jail for posting a sarcastic meme of Donald Trump on Facebook, before charges were dropped. However, in European countries like Germany and France, Hopkins’ case is no longer an anomaly. And unlike the United States, there is little public outcry or political concern about the free speech recession, nor much resistance to the underlying political consensus that European democracies must become ever more militant to defeat their enemies. But for Europeans persuaded by facts and reason, the evidence is now too overwhelming to deny the danger of creeping censorship.
Given Germany’s history, it is obvious why the country’s constitutional order is committed to keeping totalitarians at bay. However, the arsenal of Germany’s militant democracy is being deployed indiscriminately, causing collateral damage to the very basic values that it is supposed to protect. This has become particularly evident in the digital age, where thousands of Germans have been targeted for expressing controversial viewpoints on topics like immigration, Covid policies, the Israel-Gaza conflict and members of the country’s political class.
In March 2022, the head of Germany’s Federal Criminal Office made it clear that the government would meet online intolerance with real-life intolerance: ‘Anyone who posts hate messages must expect the police to be at the front door.’ In 2022, The New York Times reviewed German state records and found more than 8 500 open investigations into online speech-related offences. At least 1 000 people had been charged or punished since 2018.
This practice lives on. In February 2025, Americans were shocked when they viewed a 60 Minutes episode following German police officers and prosecutors tasked with combating online speech crimes. Prosecutors smilingly explained how reposting or merely indicating a ‘like’ for false or offensive content – such as hate speech, malicious gossip, fake quotes or personal insults – can amount to a criminal act. Even calling a powerful politician an ‘idiot’ or ‘lying piece of shit’ may prompt a police raid.
Others on the receiving end include climate activists and pro-Palestinian activists, as well as political satirists. The right to peaceful protest has also been severely affected by bans against pro-Palestinian demonstrations in many German cities since October 7. While Germany’s speech laws were intended to protect minorities and democracy, they now frequently shield governments from criticism. Ironically, they are sometimes used against those minorities they were designed to protect. The Berlin-based far-left anti-Zionist Israeli Jew Iris Hefets has been detained several times for her peaceful solo protests against what she calls a genocide in Gaza. Moreover, there are frequent prosecutions of Muslims during pro-Palestinian protests. This effectively leaves a predominantly white, German political administrative class to determine which minorities deserve protection – or prosecution – under laws meant to defend them from majoritarian intolerance.
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Jacob Mchangama is the Founder and Executive Director of The Future of Free Speech. He is also a research professor at Vanderbilt University and a Senior Fellow at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).