Germans’ Attitudes towards Freedom of Speech

The next speaker in this ECREA 2022 session is Anna-Louisa Sacher, whose focus is on the debate about freedom of speech in Germany. Such debates are increasingly heated now, both with respect to terms like “cancel culture” and to a perceived “hate climate”. Right-wing populist actors have particularly inflamed such debates by focussing on specific culture war issues.

There are only a few studies that have studied people’s understandings and perceptions of their freedom of speech in Germany, however. The present study begins from the premise of the democratic dilemma that balances free speech and freedom from discrimination. This is expressed and maintained by both legal definitions and socio-normative definitions. The study explored these understandings through an online survey.

Some 40% of respondents saw free speech in Germany as ‘fine as it is’, but a combined 47% said it was too restricted (with varying degrees of conviction). They also agreed broadly with the various legal and social-normative definitions of freedom of speech that they were presented with. But at the same time, while people felt that there legal restrictions to free speech in Germany, they also felt that there weren’t enough restrictions against hate speech.

In discussing social norms, the use of buzzwords also affected the results: people did not like having their speech restricted in the name of “political correctness”, but agreed with the basic premises of the idea if the term itself wasn’t used. This shows how much the terms we use to discuss freedom of speech themselves influence people’s opinions: the subject is highly context- and topic-dependent.