JD Vance rips ‘Orwellian’ German prosecutors for ‘criminalizing speech,’ says it will hamper Europe-US relations

Vice President JD Vance slammed German prosecutors on Monday for “criminalizing speech” — including the reposting of false information — and warned that the worsening trend will “strain” Europe’s relations with America.

Vance, 40, lashed out at prosecutors who took part in a fawning feature by CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on how easily one can commit online hate crimes in Germany — just three days after the vice president scolded European leaders for stifling dissent, religious liberty and free speech in an 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 fumed, 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 said.

“And it’s a crime to insult them online as well?” the reporter followed up.

“Yes,” they replied.

“The crime could be even higher if you insult someone on the internet,” added Fink, “because on the internet it stays there.”

In Germany, netizens can also be jailed for spreading gossip or fake quotes on social media by reposting it — and repeat offenders can earn jail time.

“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 US does prosecute hate crimes, though the statutes are used as a sentencing enhancement following conviction for violent threats or actions.

Last June, for example, a 42-year-old man in Washington State was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for threatening and hurling racial slurs at a black employee at an Olympia-based Social Security office.

Other nonviolent hate crime cases usually involve schemes infringing on civil rights

Far-right social media influencer Douglass Mackey was slapped with a seven-month sentence in 2023 for having targeted black supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and falsely claimed in Twitter posts that they could text in their votes for the 2016 election.

The German prosecutors told CBS News that their own hate speech laws came about following 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 tore into officials at the European Union and elsewhere for policing “hateful content,” citing the cancelation of a presidential election in Romania and arresting Christians for praying silently outside abortion clinics in the United Kingdom.

“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.”