{"id":4074,"date":"2017-03-14T14:51:49","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T14:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/facebook-twitter-still-failing-on-hate-speech-in-germany-as-new-law-proposed.html"},"modified":"2017-03-14T14:51:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T14:51:49","slug":"facebook-twitter-still-failing-on-hate-speech-in-germany-as-new-law-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/facebook-twitter-still-failing-on-hate-speech-in-germany-as-new-law-proposed.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Twitter still failing on hate speech in Germany as new law proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Facebook and Twitter have once again been criticized in Germany for failures to promptly remove hate speech being spread via\u00a0their platforms.<\/p>\n

At the same time the German government has\u00a0presented a draft bill aimed at more effectively\u00a0combating hate criminality and criminal offenses on social network platforms, arguing that the companies\u2019 ongoing failures necessitate tighter regulation \u2014 with a potential fine of up to \u20ac50 million being floated for social networks\u00a0breaching what are intended to be binding standards for dealing with complaints and removing criminal content.<\/p>\n

As with many EU countries, Germany\u00a0has specific hate speech laws<\/a>\u00a0that criminalize certain types of speech such as incitement to racial violence. The issue has stepped up the domestic political agenda in the country in recent years, following\u00a0the refugee crisis \u2014 with Germany taking in a large number of asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

The country\u00a0also has elections this year, heightening concern over the role\u00a0social media\u00a0can play in shaping and influencing\u00a0public opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere can be just as little space in the social networks as on the street for crimes and slander,\u201d said\u00a0Federal Justice and Consumer Protection Minister, Heiko Maas, in a statement<\/a> today (translated from German via Google Translate). \u201cThe biggest problem is that the networks do not take the complaints of their own users seriously enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in December 2015<\/a>\u00a0Facebook and Twitter\u00a0gave a commitment to the German government\u00a0that they would remove criminal hate speech\u00a0from their respective platforms within 24 hours.\u00a0Google also agreed to do so on YouTube.<\/p>\n

Last May<\/a>, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft also all agreed with the European Commission on\u00a0a code of conduct that committed to removing hate speech within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

However in the\u00a0latest German government-funded study monitoring the performance of the\u00a0companies, the Ministry of Justice said Facebook has become\u00a0worse at promptly handling user complaints, saying the company deleted or blocked 39 per cent of the criminal content reported by users \u2014 a seven percentage point decline vs the first test of its performance.<\/p>\n

In addition, only a third of content reported by Facebook users was deleted within 24 hours of the complaint being made, according to the survey.<\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s performance is also criticized, with<\/span>\u00a0the survey finding\u00a0that only one of a hundred user messages had been\u00a0erased, and none of the deletions took\u00a0place within 24 hours.<\/p>\n

The pair\u2019s\u00a0failings also contrast negatively\u00a0with Google, which is reported to have made significant improvements regarding\u00a0YouTube content complaints since the tests began \u2014 with the study\u00a0finding\u00a0that 90 per cent of user reported criminal content was\u00a0deleted from the platform, and 82 per cent of the\u00a0deletions occurred 24 hours after the notification.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle<\/span> shows with the platform Youtube that it is better,\u201d said\u00a0Maas. \u201cTherefore, it is now clear that we must further increase the pressure on social networks. We need legal regulations to make companies even more obligated to eradicate criminal offenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

We reached out to Facebook and Twitter for comment on the findings. Twitter declined to make a statement\u00a0but a spokesman said\u00a0the company\u00a0has made changes in the past few\u00a0weeks<\/a> aimed at reducing the spread of abusive content on its platform which may\u00a0would not have been in place at the time of the survey.<\/p>\n

However these tweaks made\u00a0appear most focused on\u00a0using technology to try to automatically identify abusive\/problem accounts, or give more tools to users to enable them to filter their own feeds, rather than putting more resource into content complaint processes specifically. (Although Twitter\u00a0does claim to have improved the transparency of the reporting process, such as notifying users when a complaint has been received and if it is being acted upon.)<\/p>\n

At the time of writing Facebook had not responded to our questions but we\u2019ll update this story with any response.\u00a0Update:\u00a0<\/strong>In an emailed statement a spokesperson for the company said:\u00a0\u201cWe have clear rules against hate speech and work hard to keep it off our platform. We are committed to working with the government and our partners to address this societal issue. By the end of the year over 700 people will be working on content review for Facebook in Berlin. We will look into the legislative proposal by the Federal Ministry of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding specifically to criticism that it does not take user complaints seriously enough, Facebook said\u00a0it has\u00a0changed its\u00a0internal procedures for interpreting its community standards guidelines in recent months, and has also provided specific guidance\u00a0for\u00a0its\u00a0Community Operations (CO) team regarding hate speech in Germany.<\/p>\n

It also said it has \u201cinvested heavily\u201d in the CO team\u00a0\u2014 both globally and locally in Germany. By the end of 2017, Facebook says it will have more\u00a0than 700 employees working with\u00a0content moderation partner, Arvato, based in Berlin.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0also disputes the result of the German government-funded survey (which was carried out by\u00a0jugendschutz.net<\/a>), saying the results \u201cdo not mirror our internal experience and tests by independent organizations such as FSM\u201d \u2014 claiming the latter\u2019s tests of its processes found\u00a0the opposite: a significant improvement in removing illegal content. (An FSM test based solely on user flagging from January found\u00a065% of illegal content was removed from Facebook\u00a0within 24 hours, and overall it\u00a0<\/span><\/span>had a deletion rate of 80%, according to Facebook.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not believe that the results of the current jugendschutz.net tests reflect the progress we have made in improving our systems and will analyze this test thoroughly,\u201d Facebook\u00a0says, adding:\u00a0\u201cObviously, we are disappointed by the results and we would like to thank Jugendschutz.net for testing our systems and will study all the reports carefully to help us improve the way we operate. We have clear rules against hate speech and work hard to keep it off our platform. We are committed to working with the government and our partners to address this societal issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week<\/a>\u00a0Facebook also\u00a0came under fire in the UK for content removal failures pertaining to child safety, after a BBC investigation found the platform\u00a0failed to promptly respond to the vast majority of reports the\u00a0journalist\u00a0made. The news agency had been\u00a0checking Facebook\u2019s own claims of improved performance after an earlier BBC investigation unearthed secret Facebook groups being used to share child abuse imagery. But it\u00a0concluded that Facebook had failed to improve over the past year.<\/p>\n

Facebook is also facing continued pressure for how its platform is misappropriated\u00a0to spread so called \u2018fake news\u2019 \u2014 an issue that has gained prominence in the wake of\u00a0the US election when large numbers of bogus political stories were seen to have circulated via the platform \u2014 potentially influencing how Americans voted. CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially tried to shrug off the issue, before conceding at the turn of the year that the\u00a0billion+ user platform\u00a0does indeed have \u201ca greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since December<\/a> Facebook has been piloting a series of measures aimed at fighting the spread of\u00a0fake news problem, including in Germany since January<\/a>,\u00a0working there with local third party fact-checking organization\u00a0Correctiv<\/a>\u00a0to try to identify and flag dubious content.<\/p>\n

However early signs are that Facebook\u2019s\u00a0efforts on the\u00a0fake news front are not too promising either, with Recode<\/a> reporting earlier this month that it took the platform\u00a0a full week to label one made up story as \u2018disputed\u2019 \u2014 despite the source being a self-confessed fake newspaper.<\/p>\n

\u201cShouldn\u2019t\/couldn\u2019t Facebook move faster on this stuff, especially when it\u2019s a clear-cut case like this one? Yup! But that would require Facebook to make these kinds of (easy) calls on its own, and Facebook really doesn\u2019t want to do that,\u201d was Recode\u2019s Peter Kafka\u2019s conclusion of its performance there.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s Maas also touches\u00a0on the fake news issue, arguing that the\u00a0proposed domestic law to tighten content complaint procedures for social media platforms will\u00a0also help kill fake news.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not establish a commission of truth in a free society in which freedom of expression applies. But because the rules we propose are directed against the spread of criminal content, they are also a means against criminal \u201cfake news\u201d,\u201d he said. \u201c\u201dFake News\u201d are punishable, for instance if they fulfill the facts of the offense, slander or the evil slander.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the proposals in the draft law are that social networks operating in Germany be obliged to:<\/p>\n