{"id":19316,"date":"2020-06-20T06:51:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-20T06:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds.html"},"modified":"2020-06-20T06:51:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-20T06:51:57","slug":"germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/germany-tightens-online-hate-speech-rules-to-make-platforms-send-reports-straight-to-the-feds.html","title":{"rendered":"Germany tightens online hate speech rules to make platforms send reports straight to the feds"},"content":{"rendered":"

While a French online hate speech law has just been derailed<\/a> by the country\u2019s top constitutional authority on freedom of expression grounds, Germany is beefing up hate speech rules \u2014 passing a provision that will require platforms to send suspected criminal content directly to the Federal police at the point it\u2019s reported by a user.<\/p>\n

The move is part of a wider push by the German government to tackle a rise in right wing extremism and hate crime \u2014 which it links to the spread of hate speech online.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s existing Network Enforcement Act (aka the NetzDG law) came into force in the country in 2017<\/a>, putting an obligation on social network platforms to remote hate speech within set deadlines as tight as 24 hours for easy cases \u2014 with fines of up to \u20ac50M should they fail to comply.<\/p>\n

Yesterday the parliament passed a reform <\/a>which extends NetzDG by placing a reporting obligation on platforms which requires them to report certain types of \u201ccriminal content\u201d to the Federal Criminal Police Office.<\/p>\n

A wider reform of the NetzDG law<\/a> remains ongoing in parallel, that\u2019s intended to bolster user rights and transparency, including by simplifying user notifications and making it easier for people to object to content removals and have successfully appealed content restored, among other tweaks. Broader transparency reporting requirements are also looming for platforms.<\/p>\n

The NetzDG law has always been controversial, with critics warning from the get go that it would lead to restrictions on freedom of expression by incentivizing platforms to remove content rather than risk a fine. (Aka, the risk of \u2018overblocking\u2019.) <\/span>In 2018 Human Rights Watch<\/a> dubbed it a flawed law \u2014 critiquing it for being \u201cvague, overbroad, and turn[ing] private companies into overzealous censors to avoid steep fines, leaving users with no judicial oversight or right to appeal\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

The latest change to hate speech rules is no less controversial: Now the concern is that social media giants are being co-opted to help the state build massive databases <\/span>on citizens without robust legal justification.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1. Data protection concerns. All flagged content and with it all kinds of personal data of the affected users flow into one giant central data base of a law enforcement agency<\/p>\n

\u2014 Jana Gooth (@janagooth) June 18, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

A number of amendments to the latest legal reform were rejected, including one tabled by the Greens which would have prevented the personal data of the authors of reported social media posts from being automatically sent to the police.<\/p>\n

The political party is concerned about the risk of the new reporting obligation being abused \u2014 resulting in data on citizens who have not in fact posted any criminal content ending up with the police.<\/p>\n

It also argues there are only weak notification requirements to inform authors of flagged posts that their data has been passed to the police, among sundry other criticisms.<\/p>\n

The party had proposed that only the post\u2019s content would be transmitted directly to police who would have been able to request associated personal data from the platform should there be a genuine need to investigate a particular piece of content.<\/p>\n

The German government\u2019s reform of hate speech law follows the 2019 murder of a pro-refugee politician, Walter L\u00fcbcke, by neo nazis \u2014 which it said was preceded by targeted threats and hate speech online.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a> police staged raids on 40 hate speech suspects across a number of states who are accused of posting \u201ccriminally relevant comments\u201d about L\u00fcbcke, per national media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The government also argues<\/a> that hate speech online has a chilling effect on free speech and a deleterious impact on democracy by intimidating those it targets \u2014 meaning they\u2019re unable to freely express themselves or participate without fear in society.<\/p>\n

At the pan-EU level, the European Commission has been pressing platforms to improve their reporting<\/a> around hate speech takedowns for a number of years, after tech firms signed up to voluntary EU Code of Conduct on hate speech<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is also now consulting on wider changes to platform rules and governance<\/a> \u2014 under a forthcoming Digital Services Act which will consider how much liability tech giants should face for content they\u2019re fencing.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/cDvDT5lcaTI\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While a French online hate speech law has just been derailed by the country\u2019s top constitutional authority on freedom of expression grounds, Germany is beefing up hate speech rules \u2014 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-19316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t