While social media companies are finding ways to eliminate spam from their respective sites, German lawmakers have passed a controversial law under which social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are liable to take ownership of eradicating hate speech from their websites, failing which these companies could face penalties of up to €50 million ($57 million).
The Network Enforcement Act, commonly referred to as the “Facebook law,” which was passed by the Bundestag to fine companies hosting illegal content and also failing to act upon such content within twenty four hours, will go into effect in October 2017. The companies would face an initial fine of €5 million, which could eventually go up to €50 million.
In 2015, Twitter and Google agreed to remove hate speech from their platform within 24 hours, subsequent to which the companies initiated steps to shoot-out illegal content. The companies also announced an increase in their resource capacity by adding 3000-odd employees over the next year.
Though the companies have been striving to protect their platforms, they have failed to achieve complete success. In 2017, the Justice Ministry commissioned a report that subsequently showed that these companies had not fully complied.
Justice Minister Heiko Maas and other supporters of the bill have argued that it is necessary to restrict the spread of hate speech, while some of the digital rights activities have criticized the freedom of speech. Maas aims to hold social media companies to take the ownership and be accountable to German law on hate speech and libel. But the bills have drawn ardent criticism from lawyers and a diverse mix of politicians, who believe such huge financial penalties could incentivize tech companies to censor legal speech out of caution.
As rightly said by one of the Facebook spokesman in an email, the best solution would be when everyone gets together – government, civil society and industry – and that only the law alone will not suffice in tackling this societal concern. He also concluded by saying efforts are on in all ways to ensure safety for the people on their platform.
