A justice minister in Germany proposes a heavy fine for social networks that will fail to control the spread of hate messages on their platform.
Minister Heiko Maas has been critical of late about how Facebook is handling xenophobic and racist posts and comments.
Should his proposal be approved, social networks could pay up to $53 million in penalty fees if they fail to comply with the new regulations.
The Proposed Bill
As of now, the drafted bill is still in the works and would still need Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet as well as the parliament's approval. The drafted bill is following the months in which social media networks made their own moves in tackling negative and hateful posts and comments on their platforms which Maas found to be insufficient.
He believes that these networks are not taking the reports seriously enough and should be held liable to Germany's strict hate speech laws as Twitter took down only 1 percent of reported content while Facebook removed only 39 percent.
Should the proposal be approved, social networks would have to tackle reports filed by their German users immediately and remove offensive posts within 24 hours. At the latest, social networks will be given a week after the complaint has been filed.
Mixed Reactions
The proposal is met with mixed reactions with Economy Minster Brigitte Zypries warning of the privatization of law enforcement, while the Central Council of Jews in Germany agreed with Maas, stating that strong measures against the incitement of hatred are urgently needed.
Beyond Snarky Comments
Though the justice minister's moves seem to be a bit much for some, it is rooted in Germany's strict laws about speech and tolerance. More than controlling snarky social media comments, the law finds its roots in ensuring respect for other peoples' religion and ideologies and can be found in Section 166 of the German Criminal Law:
"Whosoever publicly or through dissemination of written materials (section 11(3)) defames the religion or ideology of others in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public peace, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine."
Perhaps the recent events in Germany have ensued Maas' sudden tight grip on social network control. The recent relation problems between Turkey, the Netherlands and Germany have sparked numerous Twitter hacking incidents that spread messages with the hashtags #NaziAlmanya and #NaziHollanda, meaning Nazi Germany and Nazi Holland.
