Germany Considers 50 Million Euro Fines For Social Media Companies That Fail To Remove Hate Speech

The German Justice Ministry has recently introduced a new draft law that seeks to impose fines of up to €50 million (USD 53.2 million) on social media companies that fail to remove hate speech and other illegal content from their platforms, in due haste.

Under the proposed law, any obviously-illegal content would have to be deleted by the social media companies within 24 hours, and any material that is later determined to be illegal would have to be removed within seven days.

So, if this draft law is passed, if Facebook or other web company does not swiftly remove online threats, hate speech, or slanderous fake news, a fine can be imposed by Germany’s authorities. The amount of the fine and the frequency of it will perhaps be determined based on the gravity of the incident, and the company’s reaction to the complaint.

In addition to the possible fine, the Ministry has also asked social media companies to designate at least one contact person to be the key person in regards to dealing with such complaints. This person would also be personally liable to ensure that the regulations laid down by the Ministry are met with, and where companies fail to comply with the regulations, that person could face a fine of up to €5 million!

While it is true that the law, if and when passed, would be quite a step forward towards controlling the hate speech on social media platforms, but what is also true is that the mere fact that such a law was even drafted indicates how grave a problem hate speech (and the such like) have become for the real world. Such invectitude can’t be confined to social media platforms, or “things on the internet” though.

What becomes noteworthy then, are the numbers — how much hate speech and objectionable content is actually reported, and how much of it is removed by the companies, in the first place?!
Well, for now, the numbers for Twitter do not look too good — since Twitter reportedly only removes 1% of the reported objectionable content.
Facebook, in contrast, reportedly removed 39% of the reported content, while Youtube reportedly removed 90% of the flagged content.

In the matters of objectionable content, the speed of action also become important. If something objectionable is removed when a lot of people have already seen it, then there is no point in the “removal” of the item. What becomes noteworthy then, is that reportedly just 33% of the objection content that Facebook blocked or removed was done within 24 hours; none of the reported Twitter posts were removed within that time frame.

This new draft law, if passed, would then hold the companies far more accountable in this regard as well.

Germany’s stance on the regulation of hate speech and such has been quite strong for a while now. The country has increasingly pressured U.S. based tech companies to combat such material online much more aggressively.
In fact, it was back in 2015 that Germany influenced Facebook, Google, and Twitter to agree to reviewing and removing reported hate speech within 24 hours.

Of recent times, these platforms have been facing more and more flack given the recent onset of the Fake News problem on the internet. Consequently, Facebook introduced its Fake News filter in Germany as one of the first places to receive this intervention, amid concerns that disinformation campaigns could influence upcoming the nation’s elections.

In a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said: “We have clear rules against hate speech and work hard to keep it off our platform. We are committed to working with the government and our partners to address this societal issue. By the end of the year, over 700 people will be working on content review for Facebook in Berlin. We will look into the legislative proposal by the Federal Ministry of Justice”.

What is also noteworthy at this point, is that Germany poses quite a problem for the social media companies even though most of which are American and are used to the American standards of free speech.

Due to its Nazi past, Germany bans public Holocaust denial and any overt promotion of racism.

The situation in Germany has become even more complex now, with the onslaught that has been brought about by the recent migration due to the Middle Eastern Refugee problem. The politics of the country has become rife with even more complications, and has sparked a backlash among some Germans including a rise in online vitriol. Wanting to keep a cap on that is only natural at this point.

While the bill is still not a law yet, there is quite a good chance that it will soon be granted that status. As we wait to hear more on this, we must also contemplate on what other countries are doing in this respect, and is Germany being a little too harsh and/or paranoid, or is Germany just being practical because sometimes problems need hard stances before people actually decide to pick up the slack?!

Originally published at Chip-Monks.