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Music Government

App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music 392

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the watch-out-burzum-loving-hipsters dept.
Daniel_Stuckey writes "German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the country's interior ministers will meet this week to discuss use of an app developed by local police in Saxony that has attracted the unofficial name of 'Nazi Shazam.' Just like Shazam works out what song you're hearing from just a few bars, the system picks up audio fingerprints of neo-Nazi rock so police can intervene when it's being played. The whole situation sounds pretty insane to an outsider, but apparently far-right music is a big problem in Germany, where it's considered a 'gateway drug' into the neo-Nazi scene. The Guardian reported that in 2004, far-right groups even tried to recruit young members by handing out CD compilations in schools. That sort of action is illegal in Germany, where neo-Nazi groups are outlawed and the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors is tasked with examining and indexing media — including films, games, music, and websites — that may be harmful to young people."
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App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music More

App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music

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  • Freedom of thought (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @09:34AM (#45594651)

    It is despicable that anyone would be attracted to this sort of movement. However, it is extremely important that people be given the freedom to make the wrong choice of ideology. Only harmful actions should be punished.

    • Re:Freedom of thought (Score:5, Insightful)

      by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @09:38AM (#45594677)
      I agree, hate groups aren't right, but barring freedom for one to choose for themselves to be involved with a hate group is worse.
      • I would argue that although hate groups are worse than barring people from hate groups, the government can stop the latter immediately, so it should be stopped. Work toward making the choice unattractive, not just illegal.

      • Re:Freedom of thought (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @10:38AM (#45595439) Homepage Journal

        This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit. Canada also has laws about hate speech that would not fly in the US. The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that. The US has stricter restrictions on porn because of our culture. Although the restrictions are really very minimal outside of broadcast TV and radio.
        I hate when a bunch of people from Europe start spouting off options about the US's rules. Germany is a free nation so let it's citizens decide what works best for them.

        • The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that.

          Has nothing to do with feeling secure. We just want the f***ers to go away and die. There's nobody in Germany saying "Oh, I'm so afraid of these neo nazis, please protect me". They are saying "get rid of the bastards, kick their arses, and I don't want to hear their insane rubbish". Then of course there is the surreal point that these guys would have been the first to be put into a concentration camp 80 years ago. I mean there are _gay_ neo nazis. Don't they know anything about history?

          • Re:Freedom of thought (Score:4, Insightful)

            by LWATCDR ( 28044 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @11:06AM (#45595847) Homepage Journal

            Yea so you do not just feel secure in ignoring them. Actually wanting to destroy someone that you do not fear just because you disagree with them is frankly evil. That is what Nazis do. Really think about it for a minute. If they are no threat why not just ignore them? Simple answer is you worry about them becoming a threat.
            AKA there is no shame in not feeling secure in Germany about Neo-Nazis. In fact if you where just okay with it I would worry. It has happened before and that knowledge should keep you on your guard.
            BTW my Uncle was reported killed in action twice in Europe during WWII and had a terrible scar on his arm from where his watch branded him his tank caught fire and helped liberate one of the camps. He was from Brooklyn his however his grandparents on both sides where from Germany. He died in the 1980s but I think he would for the most part be happy with how Germany is today.

        • This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit.

          In case of Germany, the irony is that most of those various "denazification" laws were actually put in place immediately after their surrender by demand of the Allies, including US.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @10:48AM (#45595557)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • This site (http://www.solargeneral.com/jeffs-archive/hate-crimes/blacks-more-likely-to-be-arrested-for-hate-crimes/) seems to suggest that this is not the case.

          Further, that Florida preacher was arrested because he loaded his Korans into his trailer, then doused them fuel THEN drove to the site where he was going to actually torch them. This is a hazard, and he was properly stopped.

          Would have been more interesting if he had transported the fuel in a safe fashion, and conducted his burn safely. I don't thi

    • Nazi ideology is not banned by the German constitution. Some Nazi statements are banned, though they must either call for violence or racial hatred, deny the holocaust, or glorify the Nazi government of Hitler. Racist statements that do not call for hate or violence are allowed. Similar laws exist in the United States (see here [wikipedia.org] for the court's opinion) where the main difference is that the US only bans such fighting speech when it incites to immediate violence or hate. Invitations to deferred violence or ha

      • Banning calls for "racial hatred" is a slippery slope. Where along the line do you start arresting people?

        Also, I think you mean "penal code"; "penile" is an entirely different word.

        • Banning calls for "racial hatred" is a slippery slope. Where along the line do you start arresting people?

          In a slightly different place on the same slope as the United States. You would do well to read the link the grandparent post provides, to Wikipedia's article on Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. In the unanimous decision of the court, Justice Murphy wrote: [wikipedia.org]

          "There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

          The U.S. holds that certain classes of speech are of sufficiently limited social value that they may be regulated by the state without violating the strictures of the First Amendment. Effectively, the difference is that Germany applies a slightly differen

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      As with many things there is a tricky balance between what freedom a society allows vs restricting freedoms that have negative consequences to others. In Germany's case they have a pretty clear example of this particular freedom having pretty horrific consequences, so I can not blame them for being touchy about allowing such things to grow again. For Germany, Nazism is not just some abstract philosophical threat, but a particular culture that had a very concrete negative impact.
  • Young Nazis these days - what's wrong with a spot of Wagner - the original musical Nazi!!

    • You jest, but are entirely right. Quoting the article quoting the Federal Review Board for something:

      This applies to, for example, media that contain indecent, extremely violent, crime-inducing, anti-Semitic or racist material, also to media content that glorifies National Socialism, drugs, alcohol abuse, self-inflicted injury or suicide, to media content propagating vigilante justice and to media content that discriminates against specific groups of people.

      There is no way that doesn't include Wagner.

      • Listening to the whole Ring Cycle would definitely be a self-inflicted injury!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by TWX ( 665546 )
        GP and you really don't know anything about Wagner beyond what you've seen on TV documentaries about the Nazis, do you?

        Wagner himself may have held some horrible views, but the work that he produced was not geared toward racism, classism, or religious bigotry. His fascination with Norse Mythology was not based on an attempt to tie it to Prussian and later German history, rather to turn an epic tale into an opera and into profit for himself.

        It's not Wagner's fault that fifty years after his death, Ger

  • can't very well have any of THOSE kind of thoughts.

    • I suspect Nazi prohibition in Europe will work about as well as drug prohibition in the USA.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by J'raxis ( 248192 )

        They've been prohibiting Nazi-type groups since WWII. And as the article said, they're still a major problem in Germany. So yeah, it is working out about as well as the drug war. But hey, it lets the politicians say they're "doing something" and lets the cops get all sorts of new toys (and ever more tax dollars to buy more cool toys), so it's all good, right?

        • They've been prohibiting Nazi-type groups since WWII. And as the article said, they're still a major problem in Germany. So yeah, it is working out about as well as the drug war. But hey, it lets the politicians say they're "doing something" and lets the cops get all sorts of new toys (and ever more tax dollars to buy more cool toys), so it's all good, right?

          Not really a _problem_. It gives every good and law-abiding citizen a target to get rid of their aggressions without anyone complaining.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by J'raxis ( 248192 )

            The parallels to certain historical incidents in the same country are rather interesting, aren't they?

            Seems nearly every population needs a hated underclass to dump on. Let's them avoid dealing with whatever their true problems are.

      • These don't correlate well. One is inwardly destructive, while the other is outwardly exclusive and destructive.

        One involves a network of producers, processors, distribution, and sales, whilst the other is ideological, delusional, tribal, and "evangelical".

        Oh, wait....

  • I can understand why modern Germans would certainly hate anything Nazi related, but as an American the idea of just making the expression of ideas, or listening to certain music illegal sounds worse than the ideas they are oppressing (though any Nazis in power would of course do the same thing)
    • Don't worry, it's coming. I'm sure it's already here in some round-about manner. Being an American doesn't say much for how much freedom one does or does not have anymore. While I don't always agree to the whole slippery slope argument I'd have to be honest and say that it's been pretty much the case in the last few decades. Probably throughout the entire lifetime of anyone reading this.

    • but as an American the idea of just making the expression of ideas, or listening to certain music illegal sounds worse than the ideas they are oppressing

      Because America is the bastion of freedom where nobody has ever been sent to a concentration camp without trial. Ever. At least not in recent history. Well, not in the last... five months.

      • I have an elderly neighbor of Japanese descent, who was actually born and raised in the US. We got talking one day and I realized he was around during the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I casually tried to get him to talk about it... He admitted he was in the camps but wouldn't elaborate further...

        The real questions is, how long will it be until it happens again in the US?

        • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          The internment camps where not death camps. The US did not intern all Japanese and did intern many Germans and Italians.
          What will prevent it happening again is for History teachers to start teaching history instead of political doctrine.
          I had a friend who went to Dartmouth. Her history professor brought in a woman that survived Hiroshima as a child. It was to teach that the US where monsters and dropped the bomb because the US was racist.
          The same teacher never mentioned the rape of Nanking, the Bataan death

          • No one is arguing that some Japanese did terrible things before and during the war. It doesn't justify dropping nukes or fire bombing their cities.

            I'm British and we are (mostly) pretty ashamed of the way we bombed German cities.

            I can understand how we ended up doing it but that doesn't excuse it.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fnj ( 64210 )

            The US did not intern all Japanese and did intern many Germans and Italians.

            Certainly true, as worded, but could you produce comparative numbers, both absolute and as percentage of the population? The reason I ask is because it is not easy to find this information (to say the least). I would hazard a guess that FAR lesser percentages of ethnic Germans and Italians were interned, compared to ethnic Japanese.

            The fact is that the Japanese were demonized from Pearl Habor onward in a way that Germans and Italian

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Trepidity ( 597 )

      Ah yes, America, with its famous freedom [wikipedia.org] of speech [wikipedia.org] that covers [wikipedia.org] all subjects [wikipedia.org] without question [wikipedia.org].

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by C0R1D4N ( 970153 )
        I have never said anything positive about the US Federal government. I spoke only on the values I as an Americanxwas brought up to believe in. There has always been a disconnect between those values and the actions of our leaders. Many of us still try to hold to them though.

    • When germany "invented" those laws they where actively forced on us by the allied forces.
      Perhaps we nevertheless had made similar ones .. no idea.
      But it is pretty difficult to change that now.

      Bottom line "freedom of speach" is only restricted regarding nazis and hate speach, so most germans actually agree that those laws are very well set up.

  • I listened to Marylyn Manson... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jjohn ( 2991 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @09:38AM (#45594681) Homepage Journal

    ...and now I am a pansexual vampire.

    Music: it's as bad a Hitler.

    • I listened to Freddy Mercury and while I don't feel gay, I must surely be.

      Unless the gay soundwaves were countered by the manly music of AC/DC!

      We need Germany to tell us the precise effect of each style, so we can decide what to hear to be the people we want to be.

      • As a historian, I listen to a lot of music as a matter of curiosity, and I have some real Nazi music (as in actual propaganda songs from the 1930s) in the same folder as other jingoistic things like Soviet propaganda songs from the same period and various national anthems including Hatikvah. So this makes me the world's first Zionist Nazi Communist.

      • It has nothing to do with the "style" but the actual song texts. (Like: "Burn all jews on the pire! Conquer Poland to settle in their ready build farms/towns! Throw all black scum into the river Rhein!")

        Music is not NAZI music just because it has a certain style, or Ramstein perhaps would be considered a NAZI band, too.

    • The Central Scrutinizer [wikipedia.org] was right!

  • I hate hate group hate.

  • Protect your freedom of speech.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xtal ( 49134 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @09:55AM (#45594887)

    There's two unique things about the US:

    #1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

    #2. Private citizens can own handguns and assault rifles for their own protection and uses.

    Fight for those rights with all you have, because once they're gone, I doubt the world will ever see them again. Particularly #1.

    If an idea is so repulsive, the place to discredit it is in the open, not to push it underground into the recesses of the underworld, lending credence and appeal to the idea through it's illicit nature. The written word is not a place for the state, any more than the legislature is a place for preachers.

    Nobody should be put in jail for their words. Not even vile ones.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by harvestsun ( 2948641 )
      >Absolute (well, for the MOST part... except for speech determined to "incite violence", or speech determined to be a "threat", or speech which violates a copyright, or...)

      Yep.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by J'raxis ( 248192 )

      #1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

      It's true that the U.S. has the broadest free-speech laws in the world, but I'd hardly say it's "absolute" (and you even immediately contradicted this with "at least for the most part").

      As another comment pointed out, there's libel and slander.

      Then, apropos to the article here, there's hate speech, where if the government can claim that it was an immediate exhorta

    • Germany is keen on zee Guns - I recall talking to an old school mate who was a secretary working for deutsche bank in the UK and the German expats where most upset about not having their armed body guards (and presumably PPW's) when they got posted to the UK.

  • OK, so TFS says:

    That sort of action is illegal in Germany, where neo-Nazi groups are outlawed

    But... if Nazi groups are outlawed... who's enforcing this patently Nazi law that punishes people for listening for certain types of music?

  • This looks like taken from the plot of A Clockwork Orange. Or Farenheit 451, with music instead of books.

    Anyway, probably a lot of people would agree that the fans of certain music styles and groups should be put in jail or in a mental institution, but which music depend on each person and culture.

    • groups should be put in jail or in a mental institution, but which music depend on each person and culture.

      Ah that's easy: If they're country bumpkins, then folk music should land them in the klink. If they're teenage girls, then boy bands should do the trick. If they're of party-going age then we just throw 'em away for listening to electro / dubstep.

      See? It's essentially all music that should implicate you in having a desire to not be ruled by laws like these. Well, you could listen to music that we're sure you don't like, but you'll have to be registered via FMRI to prove it first. Paper's Please.

  • Sounds like a open and shut case of a government preforming illegal activities.
    I do not know much about German law, but if they outlaw fascist groups and literature, would that not make the government itself an illegal entity and all of the bills that its far-right fascist laws are written on illegal literature?

    That would be interesting, I wonder what would happen if you brought that to the court system, and tried to have some government law or flyer outlaws, or the organization itself disbanded.

  • I'm no fan of Neo Nazi's, but this strikes me as crossing over to the realm of thought crimes and criminalizing unpleasant people. Look at what they are trying to do, identify music as being wrong and identify a group of people as being wrong. Now take this same technology and remember that it can be used on other groups. What about using this technology to identify gangbangers that like gangsta rape or hackers since we know that they like techno?

    The stereotypes are bunk of course and many people listen to

  • Talk about mixing up cause and effect. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gallondr00nk ( 868673 ) on Wednesday December 04, 2013 @10:32AM (#45595355)

    The trouble isn't Neo-Nazi CD compilations leading upstanding, bright young people down an alley into right wing extremism. If they're disaffected, for whatever reason, they will continue to be so even after the CDs are destroyed or the books are burned.

    Yeah alright, ban it all. Ban the CDs, ban the literature, ban the swastica. No-one will be a Neo-Nazi anymore, right? All the problems are solved.

    Wrong. You don't become a Neo-Nazi because you love and respect the society you live in. You become one because you want to tear it down. They'll just funnel their dissatisfaction elsewhere.

    The key to learning from history isn't to ban it, but to educate and prevent the social and economic conditions that would mean repeating it.

  • Kinda reminds me of the efforts in the 50's and 60's to ban that-there rock and roll in the US and England, because, you know, it leads to bad things. There may even be a common cause in disaffected youth.

  • 1. Freedom of Speech is not absolute, nor should it be. Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater [wikipedia.org]
    2. Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences. If you openly slander your boss, he is free to fire you from the job.

    All this to say: No rights are absolute, nor are they free of consequences.

  • about Nazi-ism (not just facism, but the particular Nazi flavor) that it draws so many people in? All we are ever taught about it is all the horrible, reprehensible stuff they did (it could be just the people perverting things as always ie the way things are headed in the US) in WW2, but was/is there anything worthwhile or morally uplifting about being Nazi that we've never been aware of?

    Being a Nazi fanboi for shock value or for the perception of freedom to hate I can get.. some people are just wired that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by log0n ( 18224 )

      [sentence 1: didn't mean to sound like a Nazi atrocity denier, I meant it in the vein of bad people who spoil things for the rest of us.. etc]

  • That app better also recognize gangsta rap glorifying crime... and hate preachers of any denomination...

    To make it perfect, add Justin Bieber to the list to make the world a safer place for all mankind.

    Now excuse me while I'm trying my hand at the latest North-Korean hit songs entitled "We Shall Hold Bayonets More Firmly" and "The Joy of Bumper Harvest Overflows Amidst the Song of Mechanisation"...

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