Merkel Coalition Seeks to Punish Social Media for Hate Speech
Merkel Coalition Seeks to Punish Social Media for Hate
Speech
Germany frustrated with lack of action by media companies
‘The fines have to hurt,’ top Merkel ally Kauder says
by Patrick Donahue January 14, 2017, 3:18 AM PST January
14, 2017, 6:10 AM PST
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government plans to fine
social media networks such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. if they fail to
combat hate speech, as German officials accuse media companies of being too
slow to take action.
Volker Kauder, chairman of Merkel’s Christian Democratic
Union parliamentary caucus, said on Saturday that he reached a preliminary
agreement with Social Democratic Justice Minister Heiko Maas that would require
companies to respond to speech complaints within 24 hours. Otherwise they’ll
have to pay.
“The fines have to hurt, otherwise it won’t work,” Kauder
told reporters Saturday at a meeting of the CDU’s leadership in the western
region of Saarland.
Merkel has backed regulating social-media content
including hate speech to help counter populist movements that are gaining
support in Germany and across Europe, particularly in response to the worst
refugee crisis since World War II. Kauder, echoing frustrations within the
coalition, said that social network operators had “played dead” when confronted
with the issue.
EU Efforts
With efforts to crack down, the German coalition is
wading into a fraught debate about what a government can do to curtail online
hate speech, fake news or trolling and what constitutes censorship.
Last year, U.S. Internet giants Facebook, Twitter, Google
and Microsoft Corp. promised to engage with the European Union in efforts to
tackle hate speech. The companies joined the European Commission last May to go
beyond national laws in reviewing online activity.
Kauder, Merkel’s top lieutenant in the lower house, or
Bundestag, said the Justice Ministry will draft a bill that will include a
“catalogue of fines” and he is confident the coalition will come to a “swift”
finalized agreement. He said victims of virtual attacks should have access to
the same legal recourse as they have against other types of incitement.
“This is simply about what is valid in the real world
also counts in the digital world,” Kauder said, rejecting a query on whether
such measures are censorship.
Facebook Pressed
Justice Minister Heiko Maas told German newspaper
Rheinische Post that Facebook needed to improve its process for deleting hate
posts. The government will take legal action if it finds that the social media
company is moving too slowly, the newspaper said.
Merkel herself has been on the receiving end of a wave of
such activity, especially after last month’s deadly truck attack on a Berlin
Christmas market that killed 12 people. But the issue came to the fore in
Germany with the refugee crisis, coinciding with a surge of racist and
xenophobic social media posts.
The German leader in September 2015 confronted Facebook
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg over his company’s efforts to tackle
the problem, asking what he had done. In a conversation overheard at a luncheon
at the United Nations, Merkel was heard to ask the CEO “are you working on
this?” “Yeah,” he responded.
Five months later, Zuckerberg came to Berlin with a vow
to rid his site of hate speech against migrants. He said a team of people will
police the site in Germany to remove racist posts.
The media companies have also been under pressure from
Western governments for not doing enough to remove content related to terrorist
groups and far-right organizations. In December, the European Commission warned
that time is running out for such U.S. tech companies to prove they are serious
about tackling hate speech or face further regulation.
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