Germany to force Facebook, Google and Twitter to act on hate speech

[Tennis]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...op-hate-speech

Germany is to consider new laws that would force social media platforms such as Facebook and search engines such as Google to take a more active role in policing illegal hate speech on their sites.

Measures considered by Angela Merkel’s coalition government include forcing companies to set up clear channels for registering complaints, to publish the number of complaints they receive and to hire legally qualified ombudsmen to carry out deletions.

Online platforms that fail meet such legal requirements could be hit with fines calculated on the basis of their global annual turnover, or face on-the-spot fines of up to €500,000 if they neglect to remove posts in breach of German hate speech law within 24 hours.

Concerns over social media’s power to fire up populist narratives and boost conspiracy theories has increased after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump’s shock election in November, with politicians across Europe looking anxiously ahead to elections in France and Germany next year.

In Germany, which has some of the toughest laws around hate speech – including prison sentences for Holocaust denial and inciting hatred against minorities – political frustration with tech companies’ refusal to take responsibility for content posted on their sites has increased markedly in recent months.

A hate speech taskforce including representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter, set up by German justice minister Heiko Maas in autumn 2015, vowed to aim to delete illegal postings within 24 hours. But a government report published in late September this year found that tech companies were still struggling to react adequately to breaches of law, with Facebook only deleting 46%, YouTube 10% and Twitter 1% of illegal content flagged up by normal, non-privileged users.

According to a investigation by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Facebook currently employs about 600 people via the service provider Arvato to each carry out 2,000 deletions per day on its German-language accounts. But German officials say they have received no such information from the tech companies themselves.

If another report due at the start of next year showed no further improvement, the German government would take steps towards sanctioning companies, Maas told The Observer.

“We are already looking in detail at how we can make providers of online platforms criminally liable for undeleted content that breaks German law. Of course, if other measures don’t work we also need to think about fines. That would be a strong incentive for quick action.”

While German law currently sets an upper limit of €10 million for the amount companies can be fined for criminal offences, the justice ministry is independently looking into whether fines in the future can be calculated on the basis of a company’s global annual turnover.

“We urgently need more transparency,” said Maas, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic party. “We could imagine obliging social networks to publish at regular intervals how many complaints they have received about illegal hate speech and how they dealt with them. That way it would be visible for everyone how many complaints there are and how many deletions. That too would increase the pressure on Facebook, Twitter, Google and others.

“Companies that make money with their social networks have social obligations – it cannot be in any company’s interest that their platform is used to commit crimes”, he said.

While the debate in Germany has mostly focused on postings on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, such law changes would also have wide-ranging consequences for the Google search engine.

Last Sunday, an Observer article pointed out that the top Google search result for the question “Did the Holocaust happen” linked to an article on a neo-Nazi website. While typing the same question in German into German Google does not yield this link, the first page of results still includes links to Holocaust-denial articles.

According to Christian Solmecke, a Cologne lawyer specialising in hate-speech offences, such statements are “unequivocally” covered by section 130, paragraph 3 of the German criminal code, which states that “whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism [...] in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.”

While Google does not have to seek out illegal content out of its own accord, it has to react to any complaint, whether by deletion or by blocking access, Solmecke said: “According to German law, a complaint would immediately oblige Google to delete such content and avoid a future repeat of such a violation”.

Great stuff by the Germans!
Hopefully the fines are astronomical so that they will force these firms to act.

Let's all hope that other countries follow their lead.

[Deleted]

How about we not allow of tolerance of intolerance. It goes both ways. Criticizing medieval ideas shouldn't be prosecuted.

[Kraenen]

So this really is a case of actual government intervention using censorship rather than Twitter itself just banning people like Milo. Sounds like straightforward illegitimacy.

[Templar 331]

"Delete that racist post that one anonymous person made or we'll fine you into the dirt!!!"

Don't see that going over to well.

[Cathululock]

Because censorship always works. It has never caused problems. It has never had any back lash or anything.

I'm also 100% sure that "hate speech" isn't some vague term that could be used politically.

[Knaar]

Imho if something like that does happen in Germany, those companies will only do the same thing Youtube does : Block almost every single person from germany to see"use content.
It's way way way more easier to "simply" block a country to use said services then to be the internet police 24h/365d. Youtube does it and it seem to work well enough.

[Tennis]

So this really is a case of actual government intervention using censorship rather than Twitter itself just banning people like Milo. Sounds like straightforward illegitimacy.

Censorship? Pretty sure it's action on hate speech which most decent, civilized people support. Of course there's gonna be some racists that are upset but why should the government care?

[Serpha]

Right, so first example of hate speech is Holocaust denial? This is a prank, right?

[Deleted]

Imho if something like that does happen in Germany, those companies will only do the same thing Youtube does : Block almost every single person from germany to see"use content.
It's way way way more easier to "simply" block a country to use said services then to be the internet police 24h/365d. Youtube does it and it seem to work well enough.

Youtube is about watching videos, not about commenting.
But how does Twitter, Facebook and co. work without text communication, if you disable that? That's not feasible.

[Kraenen]

How so if hate speech is illegal in Germany?

This is just an argument from authority, literally.

[Knaar]

Youtube is about watching videos, not about commenting.
But how does Twitter, Facebook and co. work without text communication, if you disable that? That's not feasible.

What i mean is something like this : If you are german, you create a facebook account, they detect that you are from germany and they just tell you "sorry, because of the laws in your country, you cannot access our services. Have a good day"

[Seranthor]

Great stuff by the Germans!
Hopefully the fines are astronomical so that they will force these firms to act.

Let's all hope that other countries follow their lead.

So let me get this right, you SUPPORT censorship, and harsh treatment of views that are not popular?

[Zenotetsuken]

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...op-hate-speech



Great stuff by the Germans!
Hopefully the fines are astronomical so that they will force these firms to act.

Let's all hope that other countries follow their lead.

Yeah, censorship is always the solution!

[Tennis]

So let me get this right, you SUPPORT censorship, and harsh treatment of views that are not popular?

I support swift action against hate speech. I hope you also support this as well.

[Koyoti]

So let me get this right, you SUPPORT censorship, and harsh treatment of views that are not popular?

After quoting The Guardian as a source for reliable news...........anything is possible

[JohnBrown1917]

Right, so first example of hate speech is Holocaust denial? This is a prank, right?

It id against the law in Germany.

[NED funded]

Tenissace is truly the greates troll.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

So let me get this right, you SUPPORT censorship, and harsh treatment of views that are not popular?

It's fairly specific in its scope: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/e...tgb.html#p1241

Criminal Code
Section 130
(1) Whosoever, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace

1. incites hatred against a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or

2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning an aforementioined group, segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population, or defaming segments of the population,

shall be liable to imprisonment from three months to five years.

(2) Whosoever

1. with respect to written materials (section 11(3)) which incite hatred against an aforementioned group, segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population which call for violent or arbitrary measures against them, or which assault their human dignity by insulting, maliciously maligning or defaming them,

(a) disseminates such written materials;

(b) publicly displays, posts, presents, or otherwise makes them accessible;

(c) offers, supplies or makes them accessible to a person under eighteen years; or

(d) produces, obtains, supplies, stocks, offers, announces, commends, undertakes to import or export them, in order to use them or copies obtained from them within the meaning of Nos (a) to (c) or facilitate such use by another; or

2. disseminates a presentation of the content indicated in No 1 above by radio, media services, or telecommunication services

shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(3) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the kind indicated in section 6 (1) of the Code of International Criminal Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.

(4) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(5) Subsection (2) above shall also apply to written materials (section 11(3)) of a content such as is indicated in subsections (3) and (4) above.

(6) In cases under subsection (2) above, also in conjunction with subsection (5) above, and in cases of subsections (3) and (4) above, section 86(3) shall apply mutatis mutandis.



Section 130a
Attempting to cause the commission of offences by means of publication

(1) Whosoever disseminates, publicly displays, posts, presents, or otherwise makes accessible written material (section 11(3)) capable of serving as an instruction for an unlawful act named in section 126(1) and intended by its content to encourage or cause others to commit such an act, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.

(2) Whosoever

1. disseminates, publicly displays, posts, presents, or otherwise makes accessible written material (section 11(3)) capable of serving as an instruction for an unlawful act named in section 126(1); or

2. gives instructions for an unlawful act named in section 126(1) publicly or in a meeting,

in order to encourage or cause others to commit such an act, shall incur the same penalty.

(3) Section 86(3) shall apply mutatis mutandis.

[Tabrotar]

Funny how it will be the goverment here that will decide WHAT will be hate speech.
Because if someone will have a different opinion then let´s say a goverment official and said official just could claim it was hate speech and have it banned that would not be bad?
It keeps getting better and better in this country.

[ranzino]

Well, Facebook and co will very likely not continue to offer services as soon germany swings the hammer. and it is their right to give germany a middle finger instead of being at government's mercy for "not fast enough in deleting".

to much pressure on FB and co will backfire and of course Merkel's twitter and fb accounts will be deleted too. even governmental announcements can violate public opinion.