> The key thing to understand is that Europeans want clear rules around hate speech, online harassment and such.

Do they? Or is it being pushed upon them? And why is it "the key thing" here?

> Thus lawmakers are acting to find laws which encapsulate these.

I suspect it has been the reverse, the ruling class desperately wants those powers and if the common people are now in favor of them it is more than likely because of intensive campaigns from their governments and corporations to change their minds.

> In Germany, we have some simple ones surrounding using Nazi symbols and speech. These rules generally work well in our civil law context. Civil law usually is rather broad strokes and there might be cases where something injust happens which requires tuning laws.

Some laws existing does not mean some other laws won't be unjust. Or that legislated laws will always be right and not require "some tuning".

> If you come from a common law context the whole idea might seem strange.

The different systems of law don't seem all that strange to me at least, but the thread you are replying to is discussing censorship in the European nation of the UK.

Further, what we are discussing involves executive police powers (intimidation, arrests, compiling lists), as well as legislated laws, so it is not really just some quirk of common law at all.