The German government has struck a deal with Facebook, Google, and Twitter will supposedly make it easier to report and remove hate speech from the Internet. The big Web companies will now have 24 hours to remove instances of hate speech after they have been first reported.

"When the limits of free speech are trespassed, when it is about criminal expressions, sedition, incitement to carry out criminal offences that threaten people, such content has to be deleted from the net," said German Justice Minister Heiko Maas. "And we agree that as a rule this should be possible within 24 hours."

The agreement also changes how the complaints are processed. By the new workflow, they will be assessed by "specialist teams" at the companies, which will look at them from the standpoint of German law "and no longer just the terms of use of each network," Maas said.

It is currently unclear whether the hate speech will be removed from view in Germany or deleted altogether from the social networks. Another unanswered question is whether only posts and comments originating from within Germany will be swiftly dealt with.

Reports of the rise in racist and anti-foreigner comments on German social networks have been coming in over the past few months, while the country is dealing with an influx of migrants and refugees.

In October and November this year, German government authorities in Hamburg launched an investigation into four German Facebook top dogs, including Martin Ott, the company's managing director in northern, central and eastern Europe. They were to be held responsible for the social network's alleged failure to remove hate speech, which violated German law.

Facebook's spokesperson stated then that "we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees."

In a possibly related incident that took place last weekend, a group of 15 to 20 people vandalised Facebook's office in Hamburg. The attackers smashed glass at the entrance to the building, threw paint, and sprayed "Facebook dislike" on a wall.