Germany Officially Gives Up On Free Speech: Will Fine Internet Companies That Don't Delete 'Bad' Speech

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Yeah, yeah, before you rush to the comments and start justifying this by saying that Europe doesn't respect free expression in the same way the US does, let's just say while that may be true, this is still bad: Germany has moved forward with a plan to fine internet companies which don't quickly censor the internet. Censor what, though? Three loosely defined (and easily abused) categories: hate speech, criminal material and fake news.

Social media companies face fines of up to €50m (£43m) if they persistently fail to remove illegal content from their sites under a new law passed in Germany The German parliament on Friday approved the bill aimed at cracking down on hate speech, criminal material and fake news on social networks – but critics warn it could have drastic consequences for free speech online.

And, yes, again Europe has very different standards for free expression -- and Germany, in particular, has a long history of trying to suppress what it considers "bad" speech regarding some of its historical actions (Godwin'd!). Even so, this is dangerous and will be abused to stifle all sorts of important expression:

The German justice minister, Heiko Maas, who was the driving force behind the bill, said: “Freedom of speech ends where the criminal law begins.” Maas said official figures showed the number of hate crimes in Germany increased by more than 300% in the last two years.

Even accepting that free speech ends where criminal law begins, that doesn't justify fining the platforms. If people are posting "illegal" content, go after them for breaking the law. Don't go after the tools they use. By putting massive liability risks on platforms, those platforms will almost certainly overcompensate and over censor to avoid any risk of liability. That means a tremendous amount of what should be protected speech gets silence, just because these companies don't want to get fined. Even worse, the big platforms can maybe hire people to handle this. The littler platforms? They basically can't risk operating in Germany any more. Berlin is a hotbed of startups, but this is going to seriously harm many of them.

The new law also has an even weirder provision, putting liability not just on the platforms, but on individual employees at online platforms who are designated the Chief Censors for that platform:

Aside from the hefty fine for companies, the 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.

Who the hell is going to want that job? Make one mistake in failing to censor something, and you may be bankrupted.

Just a little while ago we wrote about how difficult it can be for a platform to be calling the shots on what's worth censoring and what's not. Since there's so much content, the analysis of each piece of content needs to be standardized in a manner that tends to be absurd. It appears that those supporting this law don't have any interest in the realities involved, but think that by passing this legislation, they've waved a magic wand. Yes, putting liability onto platforms (and employees) will likely lead to greater suppression of speech people dislike -- but also of important and necessary speech. There appears to have been no effort to consider how dangerous that might turn out to be.

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Filed Under: censorship, free speech, germany, hate speech, intermediary liability, social media