Germany has followed through on its proposal to make social networks remove slanderous hate speech and fake news or face massive fines.
The nation's Bundesministerium der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz (Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection) has announced that cabinet approved a plan to force social network operators to create a complaints mechanism allowing members of the public to report content that online translate-o-tronic services categorise as "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats."
The Bill approved by Cabinet proposes that social networks be required to establish complaints officer who is subject to local law and gets the job of removing obviously criminal content 24 hours after receiving a complaint. A seven-day deadline will apply to content that's not immediately identifiable as infringing. Social networks will also be required to inform complainants of the outcome of their takedown requests and to provide quarterly summaries of their activities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:58PM
What in "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats." actually covers Fake news?
You're questioning the ambiguity? That's a crime!
Maybe they mean anything that is fake and contains "insults, libel, slander, public prosecutions, crimes, and threats."?
This whole thing sounds like it's ripe for abuse and will result in a lot of takedowns/removals to err on the side of caution but they'll eventually get restored. This is perfect for trying to get a real story out of the news until things settle down and the next distraction comes along.