BoingBoing
Steemit is all about freedom of speech. Not only are we who post here unable to be censored, our posts can't be disappeared later either, like is being done to the Wayback Machine, archive.is, web.archive.org, and others, today. Blockchain FTW!
There may be some folks unaware that, in Germany, Canada, Finland, and other western nations, if you question official propaganda, you can go to jail. Seriously.
Now Germany has enacted a law that also censors social media. Yeah, like Steemit. Like you. The law says that if the site, in our case Steemit, doesn't delete posts within 24 hours they can be fined up to $57 million.
Since Steemit can't be censored, and posts can't be deleted, this means that Steemit cannot comply with this law.
As far as I can tell, that makes Steemit a criminal conspiracy in Germany, and all Steemers criminals liable to jail time.
IANAL. Any German lawyers wanna explain what this means for Steemit? Facebook, Twitter, and etc., are designed to censor and delete posts that are politically undesirable, so they'll be fine. Well, at least compliant with the demands of German propagandists.
Frankly I think they should refuse to comply, and pull out of Germany, and make a big stink about censorship and free speech. That's what I would do were I Fakebook or Twatter, but I reckon they aren't going to make any noise over it, as those are things they are already doing.
Steemit can't comply - and it should not.
Someone needs to make a stand against tyranny, and no issue is more salient than censorship. Freely sharing ideas is the basis for liberty, and tyrants cannot control our speech here.
I'm good with that.
