Germany implements new internet hate speech crackdown

[StayTuned]

http://www.dw.com/en/germany-impleme...own/a-41991590

Facebook, Twitter, and Google will need to get used to new rules in Germany from Monday, as a new law comes into effect designed to clamp down on hate speech and illegal content on the internet.

January 1 marks the end of the transitional period of the "network enforcement law" (NetzDG), which forces any internet platform with more than 2 million users to implement more efficient and effective ways to report and delete potentially illegal content. Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram will all come under the new law, though professional networks like LinkedIn and Xing are expressly excluded, as are messaging services like WhatsApp.

NetzDG has been in force since October, but the government gave companies a three-month grace period to install the new complaint management systems. As of Monday, content such as threats of violence and slander must be deleted within 24 hours of a complaint being received, or within seven days if cases are more legally complex. The companies are also obliged to produce a yearly report detailing how many posts they deleted and why.

If the deadlines are breached, companies can be fined up to €50 million ($60 million), and people can report violations to Germany's Federal Office of Justice (BfJ), which has made an online form available for the purpose.

Google has also created an online form to report content, while Twitter has added an option to its existing report function that specifies "comes under the NetzDG." Facebook has set up a more complex system, independent of its reporting options, which requires users to find a special page, take a screenshot of the offending post, and choose one of 20 offenses that the post is allegedly committing. People do not have to be registered users of the network to report content.

Meanwhile, some internet platforms have engaged outside companies like Arvato and the Competence Call Center to handle complaints - which is likely to be a major challenge: Facebook says it already receives hundreds of thousands of reports per week.

The online hate scourge

The law has received plenty of resistance, particularly from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who have branded NetzDG as a "censorship law." One of the party's deputy leaders, Beatrix von Storch, fell foul of the law on its first day, and was temporarily suspended from Twitter. Her account was restored within a few hours, minus a highly displeased tweet in response to Cologne police sending out a message in Arabic.

But journalist organizations like Reporters Without Borders and internet activists have also raised objections, not least because the government has deliberately left the task of deleting content or blocking users to the internet platforms themselves, rather than having courts make decisions. Some critics argue that that means it will become difficult to tell why individual posts have been deleted.

Meanwhile, lawyers testifying at parliamentary hearings expressed concerns that NetzDG would violate government neutrality codes in the German Basic Law. "It is certainly possible that the head of state could take direct influence," lawyer Simon Assion told the Süddeutsche Zeitung. "The Justice Ministry has access to how social networks implement their deleting mechanisms."

In a statement released earlier last year, when the draft of the law was being passed through parliament, the non-profit internet rights organization Digitale Gesellschaft ("digital society") said the law had been hastily conceived and did no more than push a huge social problem onto the plate of internet companies.

"Fighting prosecutable hate speech is a task for the whole of society, tackling it can only succeed on the basis of a thought-through, coherent concept via a joint effort by civil society," said Volker Tripp, political director of Digitale Gesellschaft. "Unilaterally shifting this responsibility onto companies is legally questionable and on top of that not productive."

False reports

Another criticism has been that the companies simply delete the posts without informing authorities, which means the people actually posting them will go unpunished (unless a user threatens to commit a violent crime or posts child pornography – in which case the companies are supposed to pass on details to police).

There are also plenty of mistakes. Most recently, Mike Samuel Delberg, a representative of Germany's Jewish community organization, had his Facebook account suspended after he uploaded a much-publicized video of restaurant owner Yorai Feinberg facing an anti-Semitic rant on the streets of Berlin. Facebook only reinstated the account after a flood of complaints.

The German Justice Ministry has been putting increasing pressure on social media sites since 2015, when many people began posting racist and xenophobic content in the aftermath of the refugee influx.

Though Facebook initially promised to deal with the problem itself by setting up its own task force, Justice Minister Heiko Maas eventually decided that a law was necessary.

Heiko Maas, our Justice Minister, thought it would be smart to regulate hate speech online. What sounds good on paper resulted in online vigilance, trolling, even more hate speech and a massive social media shit storm.

One side is furious and believes their free speech has been killed off, and that social media platforms have been advanced to online courts since they can delete posts and ban accounts based on the new hate speech law, before a real court can even classify the post as actual hate speech according to German law.

The other side welcomes the new law as they believe hate should not be protected by free speech laws and shouldn't be given any room to be spread.



Meanwhile, the AfD who belong to the first camp, smartly uses NetzDG for some more attention seeking.

Beatrix von Storch (AfD) tweeted on new years eve a response to Cologne's Arabic police announcement:

„Wieso twittert eine offizielle Polizeiseite aus NRW auf Arabisch. Meinen Sie, die barbarischen, muslimischen, gruppenvergewaltigenden Männerhorden zu besänftigen?“

"Why does an official police account from NRW tweet on Arabic? Do you think that you can calm the barbaric, Muslim, group raping men-raids that way?"

As a result, the post got deleted quite swiftly, her Twitter account was temporarily suspended and dozens of criminal charges were filed against her.


Julian Reichelt, executive editor of BILD, draws comparisons between NetzDG and Russian methods of silencing opposition. Never to miss a chance to spread some more fear among the general public.


What do you guys think? Personally I don't think NetzDG is going to work out the way it was intended. It's a great tool for trolls and online denunciation but does little to actually stop the online hate - as is evident by just browsing the German Twitter accounts for about 2 or 3 minutes. On the other hand, it gives morons like Beatrix just another reason to stick their nose out and cry wolf so loud, it can be heard on the ISS.

Trying to forcefully stop online hate speech just creates an even worse backlash.

[Serpha]

We already had a thread about it.

[StayTuned]

We already had a thread about it.

God damn it. Where?

Ok found it on page 5 or something like that. Whelp, I guess waiting for a couple of days to see the results of the new law wasn't a smart idea in regards to creating a thread about it.

- - - Updated - - -

Do people even look to see if they're making a duplicate thread? This was posted yesterday. Gah.

No, this was posted on 2nd of January.

[Tennis]

Awesome. Wish it was enforced on here as well. Sometimes I feel like it's a neo nazi club or something with all the racism and xenophobia.

[Acidbaron]

The other thread quickly turned into people not getting what hate speech is what you are trying to elaborate what will go completely over their heads, another group started crapping their pants cause they are still scared of germans and merkel and a small percentage managed to read what it actually is and understands that beyond targeting groups that support white supremacy this is also mostly targeted at groups of extremists of any kind including muslim extremism as social media is a big part of their recruitment drive.

Personal opinion, if you say crap in real life you can be held accountable, if i go to rallies and start turning it into a riot, i hold that at the same level as motivating people and encouraging people over the internet to become violent in real life, i see very little difference where the fire is set and i find those people as recently also seen in Belgium Brussels to be held fully accountable, i don't care if you are 14, 16 or 20 if you believe you can start a riot from social media let it pour over in real life causing harm on others and their belongings you should be charged and held accountable to the full extend of the law.

And i find it rather spineless that several self proclaimed "right wing" people have a complete disrespect for the law because it might target some alt-right subgroup they belong to.

But don't expect many sensible replies on this thread not that you should ever expect that when making a post here to begin with

[StayTuned]

It's kind of scary how many people on here are completely OK with being completely totalitarian, and they seem to genuinely believe that living in 1984 would be preferable to hurting somebody's feelings. We're fucked.

Don't the dynamics scare you?

You have an influential person with many followers post toxic ideas and inciting hatred - only for others to follow until it spirals out of control and we have arson attacks on refugee camps.

Isn't this more than just someones feels?

[StayTuned]

"Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." -[Thomas] Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787

Do you also have your own opinion that still holds true in 2018, or do you always base your reasoning on thoughts from 1787?

[Stormspark]

Do you also have your own opinion that still holds true in 2018, or do you always base your reasoning on thoughts from 1787?

The US did have a pretty good government in 1787. Today it's an oligarchy that is one step away from being a dictatorship. We will find out in 2018 which direction it will go.

[Blamblam41]

I'll take hate speech regulation over the internet being utterly unregulated and unchecked by the people. (See: Not users, but voters)

It sucks that you have democratically elected leaders using their power to make decisions the vast majority of people (actually) want?

At the very least you can't use Russia as an excuse for a dipshit knocking down your democracy.

[StayTuned]

The US did have a pretty good government in 1787. Today it's an oligarchy that is one step away from being a dictatorship. We will find out in 2018 which direction it will go.

Everything and everyone is an oligarchy.

The attempt to correct the cancer that is social media isn't remotely related to a dictatorship.

NetzDG just a horrendously bad attempt at it.

[Machismo]

The people who want to restrict speech are no different than those who want to restrict movement. I'm looking forward to them all jumping at the chance to say how they are not.

[Mad_Murdock]

It's kind of scary how many people on here are completely OK with being completely totalitarian, and they seem to genuinely believe that living in 1984 would be preferable to hurting somebody's feelings. We're fucked.

The 80s where pretty awesome man!. Just because you missed it, doesn't mean you have to hate on it. Though I prefer to live in 1986 if we have to be specific

And I say bravo to Germany, let them figure out how much is too much

[Kiri]

The people who want to restrict speech are no different than those who want to restrict movement. I'm looking forward to them all jumping at the chance to say how they are not.

What precisely do you mean with that? Honest question, since there are many different ways someone can want to restrict movement.

[OmniSkribe]

The 80s where pretty awesome man!. Just because you missed it, doesn't mean you have to hate on it. Though I prefer to live in 1986 if we have to be specific

I'm pretty sure he speaks about the book.

[Mad_Murdock]

I'm pretty sure he speaks about the book.

There is a lot of books and TV shows about the 80s. Because that's how awesome of a time it was.

Yes I know, I'm being a smartass

[soulcrusher]

hardly surprising given the blatant cover ups were seeing in mainland europe of the crimewave currently enriching the continent.

[Machismo]

What precisely do you mean with that? Honest question, since there are many different ways someone can want to restrict movement.

Well, the desire to limit immigration is an attempt to restrict movement.

[Deleted]

The 80s where pretty awesome man!. Just because you missed it, doesn't mean you have to hate on it. Though I prefer to live in 1986 if we have to be specific

And I say bravo to Germany, let them figure out how much is too much

I doubt any sane German would like to witness 1986 World Cup finals again...

[lonely zergling]

Well, the desire to limit immigration is an attempt to restrict movement.

Nothing wrong with wanting to limit illegal immigration. No human has the right to cross borders without consent of the country. Legal beneficial immigration is another story (most people are ok with that kind of immigration btw). There is no right to free movement across borders and even inside germany the state can restrict your movement already (if you are a criminal or have refugee status for example).

OT: The new law is crap.. it only causes censorship of opinions and of non illegal content. Hatespeech was illegal already before the law. Twitter should atleast notify you who reported your tweet in cases of false reporting so you can go after them legally. Actions have consequences - reporting non illegal posts to get them removed should be illegal.

[Machismo]

Nothing wrong with wanting to limit illegal immigration. No human has the right to cross borders without consent of the country. Legal beneficial immigration is another story (most people are ok with that kind of immigration btw). There is no right to free movement across borders and even inside germany the state can restrict your movement already (if you are a criminal or have refugee status for example).

There's nothing wrong with wanting to limit illegal speech. No human has a right to say whatever he wants without the consent of the country. Legal, beneficial speech is another story (most people are OK with that kind of speech btw)...

Once again, you guys are the same.