Vice President JD Vance criticized German prosecutors on Monday for “criminalizing speech,” including the reposting of false information, and warned that this trend will “strain” Europe’s relations with America.
Vance, 40, condemned prosecutors featured in a CBS News “60 Minutes” segment that highlighted how easily online hate crimes can be committed in Germany. This came just three days after Vance rebuked European leaders for suppressing dissent, religious liberty, and free speech during his address at the Munich Security Conference.
“Insulting someone is not a crime, and criminalizing speech is going to put real strain on European-US relationships,” Vance posted on X.
“This is Orwellian, and everyone in Europe and the US must reject this lunacy,” the vice president said, sharing a video of Dr. Matthäus Fink, Svenja Meininghaus, and Frank-Michael Laue’s interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi.
“Is it a crime to insult somebody in public?” asked Alfonsi.
“Yes,” the state prosecutors replied.
“And it’s a crime to insult them online as well?” the reporter followed up.
“Yes,” they said.
“The crime could be even higher if you insult someone on the internet,” added Fink, “because on the internet it stays there.”
In Germany, individuals can also face jail time for spreading gossip or fake quotes on social media by reposting them, with repeat offenders potentially earning prison sentences.
“In the case of reposting, it is a crime as well, because the reader can’t distinguish whether you just invented this or just reposted this,” explained Meininghaus. “That’s the same for us.”
The U.S. prosecutes hate crimes, though these statutes are typically used as sentencing enhancements following convictions for violent threats or actions. For example, in June, a 42-year-old man in Washington State was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for threatening and using racial slurs against a Black employee at a Social Security office.
Far-right social media influencer Douglass Mackey received a seven-month sentence in 2023 for targeting Black supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, falsely claiming in Twitter posts that they could text in their votes for the 2016 election.
German prosecutors told CBS News that their hate speech laws were enacted after the assassination of politician Walter Lübcke by a neo-Nazi extremist in 2019.
“People with a very right political world view, they started hating him on the internet. They started insulting him. They started to incite people to kill him. And that went on for about four years,” Meininghaus said of the response to Lübcke’s remarks in favor of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s permissive immigration stance.
In his Munich speech Friday, Vance criticized EU officials and others for policing “hateful content,” citing the cancellation of a presidential election in Romania and the arrest of Christians for silently praying outside abortion clinics in the UK.
“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said. “What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.”
“I believe deeply that there is no security if you’re afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your very own people,” Vance added. “You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail.”
