Laughing not allowed in Germany

German satirical news outlet Titanic has had its Twitter account reinstated after it was suspended for more than two days. Tweets parodying an AfD lawmaker were flagged and deleted under Germany's new "NetzDG" law.

In a press statement, Titanic's chief editor Tim Wolff said he was glad that Twitter had settled the issue "so bureaucratically and slowly," and that the paper would again have "the chance to take Twitter to task from our own account."

Titanic's account was suspended on Tuesday for a series of tweets by an imagined Beatrix von Storch, the deputy parliamentary group leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — shortly after the politician was suspended from Twitter. "Her" tweets from Titanic included a joke about watching the world darts championship final on Monday night: "White men getting drunk and shooting stuff, a last bastion of our Germanic traditions."

However, "von Storch's" harsher tweets concerning Muslims were flagged as violating Twitter's terms and were swiftly deleted by the microblogging site, despite being clearly satire.

Wolff said the paper would defend itself against this and any future suspensions, adding that Germany's new laws and regulations for publishing online content risked undermining satire.

SOURCE