130

Why are there so many Germans on Lemmy? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Nothing against Germans, I'm just wondering why, outside of the English internet, it got such high adoption in Germany compared to eg. France or Spain. I see next to no French/Spanish/etc. content on here in comparison

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] cageythree@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Hmm I don't know actually, but now I'm curious too. From quick search:

As the newspaper Handelsblatt explains, “angst about potential surveillance is rooted in Germany’s past.” The combined legacy of the Nazi Gestapo and the East German Stasi are thought to be part of the reason Germany has been a pioneer in data protection — with legislation dating back to the 1970’s.

https://www.codastory.com/surveillance-and-control/coronavirus-germany-privacy/

[-] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 4 points 22 hours ago

Interesting, although seeing as being sensitive about privacy isn't as big in other post communist countries (at least not here in Czechia), I assume it must just be a generic cultural trait

[-] Muehe@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Well the German Democratic Republic is unique among the former USSR countries in that it was unified with the Federal Republic of Germany. The latter already had a strong focus on privacy laws resulting from the Nazi time (meaning there was strong mistrust towards the state, but Nazis trying to hide in plain sight was obviously also relevant). But when the sheer amount of information the communist intelligence services were storing on their citizens became known after reunification this pre-existing privacy bias was put into overdrive, it confirmed all the worst fears west Germans already had about the state becoming too powerful.

this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026

130 points (97.1% liked)

Asklemmy

53596 readers

917 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS