I am delighted to be here to explore some ideas on one of the most important political issues of our times: “Law and Freedom in the Digital Age”.

The challenge I want to discuss, aptly formulated in one of your invitation letters, is that of “balancing civil liberties and law enforcement”.

It will come as no surprise that I intend to address this issue from a classical liberal perspective.

It took us centuries to establish justice and freedom with some degree of stability in the analogue world. By comparison, our efforts to do the same in the digital sphere are very much in their infancy.

And as in the analogue world, it is ultimately not just a question of having the right rules in place. It is also a question of awareness on the part of citizens – as bearers of fundamental rights.

Do I think of myself as having fundamental rights, and do I recognise the intrusions on my freedoms that can and do occur in the digital realm? Is this something I care about?

Do I weigh other interests, like having my needs precisely met or the promise of a safer society, against my fundamental rights? Do I even realise that there is a trade-off here?

Or – and this is another controversial question that elicits a range of answers: When and where, in the context of social networks for example, do we draw the boundaries of mischief, the boundaries of what is acceptable, the boundaries of aggression, beyond which the state should intervene?

I believe that on the continuum of interpersonal disputes, these problems belong towards the higher end of the scale. I think the threshold for regulatory intervention by the state or the criminal justice system should be high – and this includes the digital realm.

It is about discerning when freedom begins to destroy freedom – and conversely, where state action must end in order for individual freedom to be preserved. It is an ongoing trade-off, primarily between freedom of expression and the protection of other important values.

One thing is certain: we cannot protect the liberal legal order by abolishing civil liberties, by neglecting individual rights.

I want to take this opportunity to make some remarks against the background of current developments in the world. I believe in liberal democracy. Liberal democracy means democracy plus fundamental rights. Without fundamental rights like the freedom of speech, there can be no open debate. Without open debate, nothing like a democratic will can be formed. Without that, elections are mere formal rules. Hence, my thesis is: democracy is liberal democracy, or it is no democracy at all.

If you accept this thesis, then the consequence is that we must protect fundamental rights effectively. Another consequence is that we need independent courts. Because without independent courts there can be no effective protection of fundamental rights. Hence, another consequence is: you must never play off the principle of democracy against the principle of independent courts. Otherwise, you will weaken both. Otherwise, we will end up with what Alexis de Tocqueville calls the tyranny of the majority. Otherwise, we will end up with what Fareed Zakaria once called ”illiberal Democracy”.

I hope you will forgive me this outburst. Now I shall return to the question at hand.

What should the state and private entities be permitted to do in the digital world and with our data?

This is the question that I would like to offer a couple of answers to. In doing so, I will also outline some recent initiatives by the German Federal Government in the field of legal policy.

The first answer is that we do not simply rubber-stamp every restriction of liberty by the state in the name of increased security.

The most recent example of this is the European Commission’s proposal on chat monitoring – the indiscriminate blanket surveillance of encrypted communication.

This would be the equivalent of the state steaming open every single private letter to check it for illegal content.

You can imagine what the reaction would be. We wouldn’t put up with it. And we shouldn’t put up with it in the digital world either. I would consider this an assault on the privacy of millions of people. It cannot be reconciled with data protection or the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. There is no place for chat monitoring in a state governed by the rule of law.

I think that this argument will gain widespread support, as long as it is convincingly made. And that is precisely what we will continue to do.

In this Federal Government, we have taken it upon ourselves to rigorously apply the principle of proportionality in matters concerning the power of the state: in other words, every restriction of liberty must be suitable, necessary and appropriate for its intended purpose.

This means, for example, that we oppose the indiscriminate retention of data – including IP addresses.

Within the current coalition, we have agreed to eliminate this instrument from German law. Like the European Court of Justice and the German Federal Constitutional Court, we consider it to be a disproportionate encroachment on fundamental rights: it affects perfectly innocent users, and can create the feeling – as the European Court of Justice has put it – that our private lives are subject to constant surveillance.

This may just be a vague feeling. But behavioural research has shown that feelings like this do in fact influence behaviour. It is what we call the “chilling effect”. But any such inhibition in the way we communicate is unworthy of the free and open society that we aspire to be.

Incidentally, during the few years in which data retention was in use in Germany, it had no measurable effect in terms of solving crimes.

In its place, we want to give investigation authorities a new – and this time, effective – instrument: the quick freeze order, which is already in use in Austria, for example.

The idea is for telecommunications providers to be required to quickly secure data in the event of concrete suspicion of a serious crime – at first only internally, without forwarding the data to the investigating authorities.

Subsequent examination of the data by the police and the public prosecution office will require a judicial decision – as will the initial step of freezing the data. This is a transparent procedure that respects the rule of law and does not place every citizen under blanket suspicion. It is a legally sound and effective investigative tool.

That was an example of what we consider to be the limits on what the state can do in the digital world.

And what constraints should there be on private platforms and their online users?

It is widely accepted that online platforms and social networks are partly responsible for the increasingly belligerent tone we have witnessed in political debate in recent years.

An early response to this trend was Germany’s Network Enforcement Act of 2017. The Act requires online platforms to remove any illegal content reported to them within defined periods.

Another problem is that platforms themselves are sometimes to blame for stifling public discourse, to the detriment of healthy debate.

Anyone posting comments on issues such as sexual orientation, international law or climate policy on the Chinese platform TikTok can expect to be silenced. The company apparently uses word filters to suppress certain topics – without notifying its users or publishing the corresponding rules and algorithms.

As you are aware, the EU’s new Digital Services Act, or DSA for short, includes rules to prohibit precisely this kind of thing, in order to protect freedom of expression in the digital world.

Platforms may no longer arbitrarily delete posts – and any decision to remove content must be reviewed upon request. Their terms and conditions must specify what categories of content are subject to restrictions, and what algorithms are deployed to this end. This requirement extends to platforms with registered offices abroad if their services are offered to citizens in the EU.

And the rules of the DSA are quite clear: platforms must not tolerate their services being used to disseminate unlawful content. They are required to set up easily recognisable channels for reporting such content.

And this brings me to my penultimate point.

Alongside all the requirements imposed on platforms for reporting channels or self-correction, there is one area in particular in which we need to do more, and that is, quite simply, prosecutions and convictions!

After all, insults; expressing approval for serious criminal offences; threatening serious criminal offences; disseminating so-called enemy lists: all of this, whether online or offline, is already punishable under current criminal law. And the prosecution of these offences is often successful. An important element here is keeping up the pressure on perpetrators, for instance with online patrols.

Just as in our public spaces in the analogue world, the police must also be present in public spaces online – and must intervene wherever the law is violated there.

And enforcement in Germany is in fact intensifying. More and more cases of hate posts are being followed up by the police. Every time this happens, it sends an important signal.

Let me say this very clearly: Free speech is the freedom to express ourselves – not the freedom to insult others.

Because there are those who would frame even measures against hate speech as an attack on freedom of expression. In fact, however, the opposite is true! Threats and aggressive insults are intended to intimidate people, to silence them, to exclude them from the places of public discourse. To take action against this is to protect civil rights and to protect free and open debate!

And wherever we see an opportunity to support the enforcement of rights in the digital realm, we take it.

That is why we are working on a draft for an Act against Digital Violence. We recently presented a list of key points. This bill will offer solutions for dealing with the issue of anonymity in online communication.

The right to anonymity must be a given – but it must not shield perpetrators from prosecution!

Criminal or civil action against unlawful conduct online is only possible with knowledge of who is behind it. We want to ensure this not by forcing people to use their real names online, or by resorting to blanket data retention.

Once again, we propose a solution that is compatible with fundamental rights and rule-of-law principles. Under our proposal, providers will not be obliged to retain additional data. However, a court can order that data regarding a specific potential offence may not by deleted if an injured party demands access to information on this particular statement. This gives the court time to carefully examine the request. Only if it concludes that the content is in fact unlawful – and not, for example, an inappropriate but legitimate form of criticism – will it grant the request for information about its author.

In my view, this is a policy that, rather than indiscriminately restricting individual liberty, does so only where there is a very convincing and proportionate reason.

But as important as all these efforts are, and this is my final thought today, there is a caveat – or rather, two – that I would like to mention.

First: Problems that originate in the analogue world cannot be eliminated by merely banning them from being articulated on the internet. There is no substitute for engaging in difficult debate or seeking a democratic consensus; we have no choice but to stand up for freedom and human dignity.

Second, and this brings me back to where I began: none of these efforts must extend to positions or statements that some, or even many, perhaps dislike, but are nevertheless perfectly legal.

It is the duty of the state to provide extensive protection for freedom of expression and speech – including in the face of social pressures, which can be formidable.

The majority, or even what merely appears to be a majority, can be very intimidating. Thinkers like Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill already observed this in the 19th century. And the intimidation of minority opinions, even if many of us find them absurd, is something humankind cannot afford.

Mill outlined this traditional justification for the freedom of expression most lucidly in his essay "On Liberty": There is no such thing as a fundamentally superior standpoint from which one could – in possession of the truth – definitively judge the reasonableness or unreasonableness of all others.

And indeed, history has shown us that. We are only able to get closer to the truth by listening to all opinions – even if it is only one single person that holds a dissenting opinion.

There is always more than just one legitimate opinion – and not every challenge is an outrage.

The British historian Timothy Garton Ash formulated this several years ago in respect of our digital age in his book on free speech. He recommends what he calls “robust civility”: growing a thicker skin; being less easily offended; tempering our sensitivities, so as not to stifle freedoms – to overcome a crouched and fearful atmosphere of communication that constricts public discourse.

This recommendation remains as relevant as ever.

Thank you very much for today – and now I look forward to our discussion!