It was actually introduced back in October, but as the New Year rumbles to life, Germany has announced that it will now be enforcing a law that demands social media sites remove hate speech and illegal material within set time limits.
The law translates to “Enforcement on Social Networks” and is being referred to as NetzDG, an abbreviation of its full German name. A transition period was announced to give social platforms an opportunity to gear up for the changes and that has now ended. Companies that fail to remove flagged material within the time limits could face a fine of up to €50 million (£44.3 million).
The time limits kick in when content is reported, and “obviously illegal” posts should be removed within 24 hours. The BBC reports that social sites would have a week to review and act on “more complex cases.”
Germany already has stringent anti-hate speech laws, and NetzDG specifically applies them to social media sites. As well as taking down material that is unlawful, the new regulations also require social media platforms to provide a contact in Germany for user complaints or requests for information. It’s not yet clear how this will apply to sites that operate in Germany but don’t have a physical presence there.
Germany has been the first country to take such radical action, but it’s certainly not alone in wanting to crack down on the material that can be seen on social media sites.
EC previously issued guidelines on illegal material
In September, the European Commission announced a set of guidelines for social media sites, encouraging them to be more pro-active in taking down problem content and building tools to automate flagging and prevent the re-uploading of such content.
In a press release, the EC said: “The increasing availability and spreading of terrorist material and content that incites violence and hatred online is a serious threat to the security and safety of EU citizens.
“Given their increasingly important role in providing access to information, the Commission expects online platforms to take swift action over the coming months, in particular in the area of terrorism and illegal hate speech – which is already illegal under EU law, both online and offline.”
UK Security Minister proposes tax “punishments”
The UK has also voiced similar concerns but is yet to follow Germany’s lead in actually introducing new legislation.
In an interview with the Sunday Times at the weekend, Security Minister Ben Wallace referred to some tech firms as “ruthless profiteers” and called for potential “tax punishments.”
"Because content is not taken down as quickly as they could do we're having to de-radicalise people who have been radicalised. That's costing millions,” he said.
"Because of encryption and because of radicalisation, the cost of that is heaped on law enforcement agencies.”
He added that the refusal of messaging services such as WhatsApp to give the security services access to content was “turning the internet into an anarchic violent space.”
"We should stop pretending that because they sit on beanbags in T-shirts they are not ruthless profiteers," he continued.
"They will ruthlessly sell our details to loans and soft-porn companies but not give it to our democratically elected government."
Facebook has “spent millions” on anti-terrorism measures
Social media representatives refuted Wallace’s views, however.
Facebook Policy Director Simon Milner said that the company had already spent millions of pounds on people and technology aimed at identifying and removing terrorism-related materials.
"But this is an ongoing battle and we must continue to fight it together, indeed our CEO recently told our investors that in 2018 we will continue to put the safety of our community before profits,” he told the BBC.
Dr Shiraz Maher, from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, added: "Mobilisation to terrorism still involves real life, real world contacts so governments can't solely blame tech companies.
"Also there is no easy fix, because what constitutes extremist material is subjective."
While Germany’s concrete measures and the sentiments of other nations appear to have broad support, there has also been a lot of criticism.
In the case of Germany’s NetzDG, critics have argued that the potential fine will lead to censorship by encouraging sites to take down controversial material pre-emptively. It’s also being claimed that the EC Code could be problematic as it would encourage companies to adopt an “algorithmic” approach to a complex problem and that both approaches could affect free speech online.
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