Lunchtime Talk: Free Speech and/or Democracy? The NetzDG Discourse on Twitter

In this talk, we will present research on the public discourse about a German anti-hate speech law called the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) on Twitter/X. The primary discourse about NetzDG was filled with fears of overblocking assuming that a law that was intended to reduce hate speech and protect minorities’ right to freedom of expression could eventually lead to censorship and threaten democracy. Based on a social network analysis that focuses on retweets as indicators of relevance and grouped users based on their retweet activity, we will discuss our findings regarding the most influential stakeholders in these debates and position our overall research project as a method to gain insights into the interested parties, their communicative strategies, and the “sociotechnical imaginaries” (Jasanoff 2025) that underpin their narratives.