German Hate Speech Law Goes Into Effect, Turning Social Media Platforms Into Gov't Revenue Generators
from the gentlemen:-start-your-paperwork dept
Social media platforms doing business in Germany can look forward to a year filled with fines of up to €50m. Germany's hate speech law went into effect on January 1st, providing the country with a new revenue stream it can tap into for the rest of whatever.
The Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) law was passed at the end of June 2017 and came into force in early October.
The social networks were given until the end of 2017 to prepare themselves for the arrival of NetzDG.
The law gives social media platforms 24 hours to remove "obviously illegal" content. This, of course, raises the question about how obvious "obviously illegal" content needs to be to trigger the 24-hour deletion requirement. Presumably, the government gets to decide how "obvious" the illegality is and how often it gets to collect millions of euros.
In what must be considered a show of government largesse, one week will be allowed to handle "complex" removal orders -- again, something likely determined solely by the German government. Given Germany's ultra-weird relationship with its Nazi past, the difference between complex and simple takedown demands isn't likely to be clear cut, putting companies in the path of fines and further German government grousing.
I understand that American companies are somewhat obliged to follow local laws when providing services overseas, but they should not be put in the position of being held criminally and civilly liable for the posts of their users. They can attempt to moderate content with an eye on local statutes, but the fines for posting "obviously illegal" content should be levied on the person posting it, rather than the service provider.
This ridiculous shifting of liability is even more egregious in Germany. Not only are service providers fined for not removing illegal content, EMPLOYEES of these companies can be directly fined as well.
[T]he law also provides for fines of up to €5m for the person each company designates to deal with the complaints procedure if it doesn’t meet requirements.
We often see government officials claiming the billions of dollars in profits Google, Facebook, et al rack up somehow should result in perfect compliance with every esoteric, content-related complaint worldwide. But no one's claimed individual employees tasked with government compliance are callous billionaires, and yet the German hate speech law makes that equation with its willingness to bankrupt individuals for not responding to government removal demands fast enough.
There are concerns in Germany this law could lead to government censorship and a restriction of free speech. These concerns have already materialized somewhat indirectly. A regime with an interest in censorship and curtailing criticism has already pushed out a carbon-copy of Germany's law. This gives Russia the opportunity to push companies into performing censorship on its behalf, with Germany to point at when critics start questioning Russia's actions.
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Filed Under: germany, hate speech, intermediary liability, social media
Companies: facebook, google
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Please Define
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Re: Please Define
I've been lectured on that in just prior piece, but seems rules NEVER apply to fanboys.
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if you run around expecting everyone to bend to your rules of decorum you are a sad little human
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Perhaps you'd understand this if you spent as much time learning the ACTUAL opinions being typed as you do whining about people hiding your nonsense, you'd understand this ;)
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I'd like to see platforms pulling their physical presence from Germany just to avoid the insane burden this will put on them. But what's probably gonna happen is they will set their filtering algorithms to "North Korea" and turn the experience for Germans into a big, warm wasteland.
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Humans are bad at learning from it. But it's not like you would understand anything about that.
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But you knew that.
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To be clear, they only have to look back 20 years.
NYT (1997): Germany Charges Compuserve Manager
(...for pornography and Nazi swastikas on foreign web sites after CompuServe connected to the internet.)
NYT (1999): German Court Overturns Pornography Ruling Against CompuServe
Granted, that case was about merely letting the material travel across their networks, not about hosting it.
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Well that's one way to clear out the employee roster...
[T]he law also provides for fines of up to €5m for the person each company designates to deal with the complaints procedure if it doesn’t meet requirements.
Otherwise known as 'the job no sane person would ever accept.'
Five million personal liability? Even someone desperate for a job would be smart to quit on the spot the second they were given that job, as a single fine would have the ability to bankrupt them. Having to look for another job would be vastly more preferable to having your finances utterly demolished in one blow, something I imagine most people will realize pretty quick.
Fifty million for the company, five million for anyone stupid enough to take the position of scapegoat... I can't help but wonder how many times a company will be hit or threatened with fines like that before they crunch the numbers and decide that it's simply not worth the risk operating in Germany at all.
They can attempt to moderate content with an eye on local statutes, but the fines for posting "obviously illegal" content should be levied on the person posting it, rather than the service provider.
Facebook can afford to pay a large fine(how often they'll be willing to do so is another matter), a random poster isn't likely to be able to, and if they're doing it for the money(as I suspect is the case), then going after the party with a large bank account makes much more sense.
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Re: Well that's one way to clear out the employee roster...
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Re: Well that's one way to clear out the employee roster...
Because if you can't find anyone to take the job with a $5 million dollar penalty for screwing up (which is sure to be at least 20 years worth of salary), then who is going to remove the illegal content?
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Yot, corporations are responsible to the public.
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Re: Yot, corporations are responsible to the public.
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Re: Yot, corporations are responsible to the public.
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Re: Re: Yot, corporations are responsible to the public.
ftfy
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Re: Yot, corporations are responsible to the public.
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The official account will be fined, but in summarizing the hate speech will itself commit hate speech and be fined.
This becomes an endless circle until the Government starts putting yellow stars on Youtubers and rounding them up into special "video re-education" camps.
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How?
We simply takedown the original poster using a rifle.
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and as soon you have given it power it clamps the shackles its supporters and boy do they like to cry and whine when it happens
funny either way because they laughed at and ridiculed those that warned them
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Should work to put the liability on "callous billionaires".
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Re: Should work to put the liability on "callous billionaires".
So typical. A company does well, the CEO get the bonus. A company does poorly, some poor working smuck gets the fine.
If the CEO gets the bonus, he should also get the fine.
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Re: Should work to put the liability on "callous billionaires".
Citation needed.
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Meet Bob!
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Even dissident politicians, such as from Germany's "far right" AfD party, have discovered that criticising "hate speech" laws is in itself considered a form of "hate speech".
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So what you are saying is that Mark Zuckerberg should suffer the consequences when you post illegal content on Facebook. Seems to me that you want absolute protection from any liability for your own actions.
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SUE ME
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It Could Be Worse
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Nothing new here, spare your outrage
German internet law has for decades operated on a simple principle: Providers have immunity for content they don't know about and remove in a timely fashion once they do know about it. A provider can of course decide that a report they got is bogus and the content in question is legal, but if a judge ultimately decides otherwise, they're SOL. If you want the legalese, the current (since 2007) place is the Telemediengesetz, §10.
The only thing that did change is the 50 million figure. Previously, a company the size of Facebook or Twitter could ignore most complaints, suing Facebook is not exactly easy and even if somebody did, the potential damages were laughable to them. Now the cost of doing nothing is proportional to the finances of the companies.
And of course they're throwing a hissy fit over it. If you are used to being worshipped as sacred "job creators", it must be hard to be suddenly held to the same standards as some lowly proles...
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Re: Nothing new here, spare your outrage
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Somewhat?
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So, while you will still be looking at the *perfet* solution to marry absolute free speech, unregulated capitalism and at the same time avoiding hate speech or online abuse we in europe will start with something that it's not perfect but can be made better.
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"You just let the social platforms do as they please =)"
No, they hold the people responsible for the comments responsible for them instead of palming it off on to 3rd parties who have no control over what people using their services do before they do it. Is that not reasonable?
There's some possible compromises to be made for sure, but if you think the US is too far on one side, then this idiocy is a solution *way* too far on the other - and it WILL backfire, be that on still not stopping the speech you want it to stop or preventing your speech that you believe is necessary.
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I don't seem to recall that as policy those platforms held people responsible for what they say, I yet have to see some examples on how all the alt-right trolls, the mysoginistic gamergate assholes or all the russian sock puppets have been held responsible for their actions on the social platforms.
It's extremely obvious that all social platforms don't care about speech of any kind but only about monetizing everything, and guess what? Hate speech (and fake news) are amazing controversy, and consequently, income generators.
But if you believe that speech must be allowed no matter what, then I don't think we have a basis for a discussion, and we will just shout at each others face.
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Nobody's saying you should be able to, only that it should be the person posting the swastika held responsible rather than Facebook themselves.
"I don't seem to recall that as policy those platforms held people responsible for what they say"
Luckily, reality is not dependent on whether or not one random person recalls it or not. It exists even if you pretend it is not as it is.
"It's extremely obvious that all social platforms don't care about speech of any kind but only about monetizing everything"
For profit businesses do tend to be like that, yes. So?
"But if you believe that speech must be allowed no matter what, then I don't think we have a basis for a discussion, and we will just shout at each others face."
No, the problem is that you've spent paragraphs lecturing me about things that are not my opinion while not taking a moment to understand my actual opinion. YOU are the problem, sir.
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So just let the social platforms do as they please =) QED
> YOU are the problem, sir.
NO YOU! Jesus, grow up, I am done speaking to you.
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You can lie about what I'm saying all you want, but it won't make it true. Platforms will still be held to standards, they will just be held responsible for the violations that they commit, not the ones other people commit.
You're trying really hard to pretend I'm saying stuff I'm not, for some reason.
"NO YOU! Jesus, grow up, I am done speaking to you."
Good, because your lies about my opinions are already rather ridiculous and tiresome.
You need to grow up, and address the things people are actually saying, not the things you just invented to make you feel superior. Come back when you're ready for grown up conversation.
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