Incitement of the people also possible in private Whatsapp group

I usually leave my fingers on general criminal law. There are colleagues who can do better. Nevertheless, I always find issues related to IT and/or social media very exciting.

Time and again, WhatsApp as a messenger service is part of legal decisions. While last year the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt ruled that family members may insult each other via WhatsApp without penalty(see this article)m, the Würzburg District Court has now ruled that the element of incitement to hatred under Section 130 of the German Criminal Code (StGB) may also be realized in the context of a WhatsApp group with 20 participants. Yesterday, for example, a carnival official was fined €7,200 for spreading a xenophobic message to the group. Among other things, he circulated the picture showing a Bundeswehr soldier with a submachine gun in the attack and commented: “The fastest German asylum procedure rejects up to 1,400 applications per minute.”

The oft-heard view that WhatsApp is private after all (at least if it’s not in person-to-person chats) is hardly tenable. So you should think carefully about what you post, when and where. This applies as here in criminal law, but of course also in civil law (see this post on picture postings in a closed Facebook group).