I’m of the belief that an entity whether that be a State one or otherwise that puts into practise censorship or which steps beyond the bounds of publicity and embraces the propagation of propaganda, are rarely if ever, the ‘good guys’. An entity that is engaging in the twin evils of censorship and propaganda are not the good guy’s and censorship and propaganda is what we are seeing in Germany at the moment.

A country needs to go some to have a propaganda and censorship regime worse than that of Britain but the German government seems to be managing it.

Germany it’s fair to say has never had the sort of free speech environment that our American friends have and also not the sort of free viewpoint environment that once was the case in the United Kingdom. Germany, from before the days of the Kaiserieich or Imperial Germany had censorship. Prior to unification in the late 19^th century most of the states, with the possible exception of Frankfurt, that eventually went to make up Germany,. had some form of censorship or licensing of publications.

Imperial Germany also didn’t institute total freedom of speech and censorship became worse once World War One started. The Weimar Republic had censorship of material such as pornography but also had baked into its constitution provisions to criminalise ‘hate speech’ and this law was used on numerous occasions against Nazi Party publications. Ironically the targeting of the Nazis for prosecution under ‘hate speech’ laws actually helped the Nazis because it allowed them to falsely, but somewhat successfully, claim that the Nazis were being persecuted by the State for standing up for Germany.

The Nazi period started and ended with vicious censorship and copious amounts of propaganda. The censorship and propaganda regime in the Third Reich was so all encompassing that it’s almost beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say the Third Reich was not an environment where Germans could speak freely and if they attempted it then normally only death awaited them for doing that.

Following the defeat of Nazism the victorious Allied Powers instituted strict controls on speech and media. The Allies were determined that there would be no resurrection of Nazism and treated censorship as part of a de-Nazification policy.

West Germany founded in 1949 also had censorship policies most of which were aimed at preventing young people from accessing porn or material that glorified war. West Germany also came down hard on material that was favourable to a revisionist view of the 1933-1945 period.

East Germany had almost complete censorship of books, newspapers and magazines and only stuff that was favourable to the ruling Communist Party was allowed.

Reunified Germany also has its censors and complaints about such censorship have come from all sides including sides that I have a vehement disagreement with. The growing political Right in Germany has faced censorship and been subjected to political propaganda attacking it. Campaigners for ‘Palestine’ have also complained about restrictions on their speech. Now I’ve no time at all for the ‘Palestine’ crowd, I think they are dangerously demented, but I’m uneasy about censoring them. Much better in my view have their nonsense defeated in the marketplace of ideas. I have to be consistent on this matter of freedom of speech even if it means defending the speech rights of those who I believe are scum.

I believe my German friends need to look back at their nation’s history and understand that censorship or propaganda distribution is rarely done by the good guys. The German Princes, the King in Prussia, well meaning but short sighted Weimar politicians, Nazis, the post-War West German governments, have all acted as censors and propagandists at some part of or all the period of their rule.

Now it appears that the issue regarding censorship and in particular propaganda is about to get far worse for Germans than it has been recently. Apparently, according to a pseudonymous author at The Daily Sceptic, the German government is planning to ensure that German viewers of online content are presented with 20% ‘diverse content’. Carriers will have to ensure that 1 in 5 posts on social media or You Tube videos or whatever are properly judged to be ‘diverse’. The author points out that this is not just to show different ethnicities in content but to promote ‘viewpoint’ diversity, but not in any way that many of us would recognise it. The writer of this piece believes that this ‘viewpoint diversity’ that the German authorities are looking at is making sure that the viewpoint of German state run media is promoted.

The writer said:

“The main problem with Social Media Algorithms, apparently, is that they give you too much of the content you like and not enough of the content you don’t like. Stopping these exploitative tactics and ensuring that your feed is filled also with things you don’t care about and never want to see is among the goals of our powerful Broadcasting Commission, as they hammer out the second part of their new Digital Media State Treaty (DMStV).”

What the German want to do is force German internet users to consume state run media whether they want to do so or not and a lot of Germans appear to have chosen not to consume such media. It’s the equivalent of forcing Britons to have the BBC appear on every fifth tweet, or every fifth Facebook post or have BBC propaganda as every fifth recommended You Tube video. It’s an appalling plan. It’s like something that could have been cooked up by the bureaucrats and politicians of Germany’s recent and not so recent past.

The author added, sarcastically I need to say:

“The intensely necessary, urgently needed and desperately required additional regulations of the DMStV include a provision addressing “the diversity of journalistic content on social media“. This item will foil the demon algorithms by requiring social media platforms to lard users’ feeds with 20% diversity-certified journalistic content. One out of every five videos YouTube recommends and one out of every five tweets in your X feed will have to be diverse! journalistic! content! if and when these draft rules take effect. For the purposes of these obviously warranted rules, anything produced by German public media outlets will be considered diversity-certified automatically, because why not. Private media companies, on the other hand, will have to prove their journalistic integrity and ‘diversity-promoting’ nature before their posts can count towards this 20% quota. The individual State Media Authorities, bastions of far-sighted integrity and wisdom, will decide which private media companies get to count as “diverse”.

“Diversity” in this context does not mean racial, ethnic or cultural diversity – contrary to how some have interpreted this dumb proposal. It is worse and also more comprehensive than that. The regulators mean something like ‘viewpoint diversity’, and yet nothing in their proposed legislation establishes a quota for diverse opinions, because “diversity” is just a sloppy euphemism for ‘state-approved content’.”

Yes, this is exactly what this plan is. It’s a means of forcing state approved content down the throats of the long suffering modern German. They are going to be forced to consume State Approved media gruel precisely because they’ve got sick of having to eat State Approved gruel.

Governments having to engage in such gross levels of propaganda is not a sign that a nation is being governed well. I know this from living in the United Kingdom where our state run broadcaster the BBC does engage in gross levels of propaganda and it does so by what it includes and highlights, what stories it leaves out and what ‘slant’ is put on a said story. Too much of our mainstream media outside of the BBC acts as if it was State Approved and rarely tells the real story of what is going on in Britain. Even when they do attempt for them an uncomfortable story, the media, especially the BBC, needs to be dragged kicking and screaming towards a story that they know that even they cannot completely ignore. The Germans are about to get all of that and probably much more. At least in Britain we can reject such propaganda by not watching or not paying for the BBC. The Germans don’t have that option as a TV licence tax is included in other taxes. If this proposed plan goes through not only will the German people be subjected to highly intrusive levels of Government Approved propaganda but they will know that they are paying for it as well.

This scheme is an appalling intrusion into the media choices of the German people. I have little doubt that this will get through and also little doubt that this will piss off many Germans. My German friends see this plan as I see it and understand it. This is more of the same censorship and propaganda policies that have been deployed by authoritarian princes and mentally unstable Kaisers. Used by politicians unable to control a fractious nation, by a Uni-testicled Austrian Corporal to dominate and deprave your nation and by those who have occupied you whether that be a short time as was the case of the Allies or a very long time as in the case of the Soviets in East Germany. This is a censorship and propaganda policy that must be resisted. Germans should fear the motives of the sort of people who would be choosing what they are and are not force fed and do whatever they can to resist this policy as it will not have a good end because governments that feel the need to censor and propagandise are rarely themselves good at governing in the interests of their people.

Link

Original piece on Germany’s new propaganda scheme.

https://dailysceptic.org/2026/10/24/social-media-platforms-required-to-boost-diversity-promoting-content-under-new-german-legislation/