The German government presented a draft law which provides for fines of up to 50 mln. Euros on social networks that do not erase hate speech and false news. This represents the firm position of the European country against Internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter, writes Financial Times. Justice Minister Heiko Maas said that social networks are not doing enough to erase racist comments, incite violence, lean from their users. "Too few illegal content is deleted and is not erased quickly enough. The biggest problem is and remains that that networks do not take seriously enough the complaints of their own customers," says Maas.
Potential impact
The law reflects growing concerns in German political circles about the potential impact that false news and hate speech can have on federal elections later this year. Fears are that the internet lies can play a big role in Germany, as they did during the US election campaign. Then fake news like this that the Pope supports Donald Trump were distributed in Facebook. But some are wary. "The danger is that the platforms will start to delete posts that are not really illegal to avoid possible fines. This will undermine freedom of speech," says Stefan Human technological institute Stiftung Neue Verantwortung.
Experts say that was inevitable tone to social networks to harden in Germany. Holocaust denial and incitement to racial violence are considered serious crimes. The draft law is aimed mainly towards hate speech, which reached a peak in the country since Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to allow hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing civil wars and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa. According to Maas targets are taken and false news, especially those that are potentially libelous. Although there will be no criminal sanctions against all fictional news stories. Facebook says that there is "clear rules against hate speech" and worked hard to erase from its platform. "We are committed to working with the government and with our partners to tackle this social problem," the Facebook. And add that to the end of the year, over 700 people will work on the screening of content on the platform in Berlin. The company also announced in January that test their filtering equipment false news in Germany.
Registering complaints
The proposed law creates a legal requirement for social networks to provide users "easily recognizable and quickly accessible process for registering complaints about illegal content." They will also be obliged to delete or block any content that is defined as a criminal, within 24 hours. However, the platforms will have more time - seven days to erase or block comments that are not so obviously illegal and need verification. In any case, complaints will have to be informed immediately of any decision. According to Maas law will oblige the social networks present a quarterly report how they handled complaints, how many complaints were received and how they were resolved. They must announce how and personnel devoted to the processing of whistleblowing.
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