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posted by martyb on Saturday July 01 2017, @05:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the "obviously-illegal"-is-as-obvious-as-"common-sense"-is-common dept.

The German Parliament has passed the "Network Enforcement Act" or "NetzDG":

The German Parliament passed a new social media law1, called the "Network Enforcement Act" ("NetzDG" in German), that punishes social media companies with fines ranging from 5 million to 50 million euro if they don't immediately remove "obviously illegal" content. Human rights groups have called the law rushed and harmful to free expression.

According to the German Federal Criminal Police Office, hate crime has grown by 300% in the past two years alone. In a speech1 today, Germany's Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection, Heiko Maas, said that freedom of expression is a great asset to have in an open society, but it ends where criminal law begins.

[...] At a recent hearing, of the 10 experts who were invited to testify, eight criticized the law that was still in draft stage at the time. Five of them said the law would be incompatible with the German Constitution. The Network Enforcement Act was slightly modified since then and, for instance, the mention of companies having to implement automatic content filters has been removed. However, a new "self-regulatory" body will have to be created, whose operation costs will be paid by the private industry. The companies will be able to send some content for evaluation if they are uncertain of its legality. It's not clear how transparent or accountable this body will be, according to the European Digital Rights (EDRi) non-profit organization.

A recent post on ProPublica has shown that Facebook's own censorship policies are inconsistent at best. For instance, the company would censor hate speech against white people, but not against certain Muslim groups that were considered radicalized by Facebook's low-paid contractors. It's also not the first time Facebook's inconsistent censorship rules have attracted the public's attention, whether it was about old and popular war pictures or blocking competitors' links.

1 Linked page is in German. --Ed.

Previously:
Germany Raids Homes of 36 People Accused of Hateful Postings Over Social Media


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  • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Saturday July 01 2017, @10:11PM (1 child)

    by inertnet (4071) on Saturday July 01 2017, @10:11PM (#534007) Journal

    Those in power obviously still believe that censoring people will make the growing unrest go away.

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Saturday July 01 2017, @10:44PM

    by tftp (806) on Saturday July 01 2017, @10:44PM (#534014) Homepage

    The people in power are usually just trying to kick the can down the road. If censoring of certain ideas may help delay certain events by a few years, they go full ahead with censorship. It costs nearly nothing. How often governments fall and individuals are fired over censorship?