Facebook, among other companies have been under the scanner for spreading fake news, a topic of discussion that gained importance after the US Presidential Elections over that past couple of months. As per The Guardian Germany is once again after Facebook, and other online entities like Google and Twitter to take action against the spread of fake news or incur fines of up to €500,000.
No, that’s not the combined fine for all the fake news on a particular social media outlet at a given point in time, but just one piece of fake news. Germany is to consider the new laws so that social media websites and the like, begin to actively police illegal and hate speech on their respective websites. The policing would include setting up registered offices for dealing with user reported complaints.
Companies will have to set up the above mentioned processes in place or could be hit with fines based on their global annual turnover. The other option would be on-the-spot fines of up to €500,000 if the website fails to remove the marked down post within 24 hours.
This is not the first time that Germany has moved against hate speech online. Back in 2015, German justice minister Heiko Mass had set up a taskforce with representatives from Google, Facebook and Twitter to combat hate speech and remove illegal posts within 24 hours. As per a previous report, the taskforce did not manage to pull off the same.
“We are already looking in detail at how we can make providers of online platforms criminally liable for undeleted content that breaks German law. Of course, if other measures don’t work we also need to think about fines. That would be a strong incentive for quick action.” Maas told The Observer.
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