Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

German lawmakers have approved a controversial law that would impose high fines on social media companies like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube for failing to swiftly delete posts deemed to exhibit hate speech.


Under the new legislation, social media companies have 24 hours to remove posts that obviously violate German law and have been reported by other users. In cases that are more ambiguous, Facebook and other sites have seven days to deal with the offending post. If they don't comply with the new legislation, the companies could face a fine of up to 50 million euros ($57.1 million).

The law was passed with votes from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) - Social Democratic Party (SPD) government coalition. The Left Party in the Bundestag voted against it, while members of the Greens abstained.

The new rules are supposed to drastically reduce the number of posts containing hate speech, fake news and terror propaganda on social media. In January and February 2017, Youtube deleted 90 percent of hate speech videos reported by users - but Twitter only deleted one percent. Facebook did a little better at 39 percent.
 [dw.com]
30/6/17