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German government proposes legislation to fine fake news and hate speech

Xinhua, April 5, 2017 Adjust font size:

The German Federal Cabinet on Wednesday approved the submission of a new legislative bill to parliament that will see social media companies subject to fines of up to 50 million euros for failing to remove hate speech and illegal fake news.

The cabinet has acted swiftly so that parliament can pass the bill into law before the summer break, after which election campaigning begins.

Illegal content such as defamation or hate speech must be deleted by the operators of social networks within 24 hours after receipt of a user complaint or one week of being posted.

The legislation was proposed by Federal Minister of Justice Heiko Maas to "substantiate the existing obligation to remove hate crime and malicious fake news" by the operators of social media services.

"We cannot accept anymore that companies in Germany don't abide by the law," Maas told German TV channel ARD.

Despite lengthy negotiations and promises by the social media firms over the past year, there has been little progress on this issue.

And the number of deletes made by the social media companies hugely varied. According to a new study by the Ministry of Justice, Twitter deletes less than 1 percent, Facebook less than 50 percent and YouTube over 90 percent.

The new legislation encountered criticism from Green Party politician Renate Kuenast, who told ARD "My fear, and that of many, is that the version [of the law] he is proposing, in the end, will lead to a severe limitation of freedom of speech since all that will be done is deleting, deleting, deleting."

Addressing the fears for a possible privatization of censorship, Maas said "Freedom of expression ends where the criminal law starts. Our law applies to illegal content only."

Actually, social media companies are indeed obliged to delete unlawful content.

And social media providers are also obliged to cooperate with the prosecution of those who practice hate speech because the legal process is hindered by anonymity. Enditem