A new law has come into effect in Germany whereby companies like Facebook and Twitter face multi-million-euro fines if they don’t block their users from expressing “hate speech” <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/germany-ban-online-hate-speech-triggers-debate-180109190245373.html>. Trouble is, this law seems to be a bit of a blunt axe: on the one hand it led to the temporary suspension of the Twitter account of the deputy leader of the far-right AfD party, Beatrix von Storch. But also caught up in the net was the account of the satirical “Titanic” magazine, after it parodied a phrase used by von Storch. Then again, if you are seen to clamp down too hard on particular points of view, that gives political ammunition to those who claim they are being censored...