Internet Censorship in Germany

A German court has ruled that authorities are justified in banning three unnamed porn websites based in Cyprus from operating in Germany due to rules requiring age verification.

The Duesseldorf administrative court said it had rejected complaints by the sites' two unnamed operators, who argued that the age verification regulations in Germany didn't apply to them because they were based in another European Union country.

The court said the decision taken by the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia state to ban the sites in Germany didn't breach national, European or international law.

The names of the sites weren't released by the court. The ruling can be appealed.

Google has announced that it was taking legal action over Germany's expanded hate-speech legislation which took effect in April this year.

In a blog post Google said that a new provision of Germany's Network Enforcement Act ('NetzDG') violates the right to privacy of its users. The provision requires social media platforms to share with law enforcement personal details of those sharing content suspected to be hateful.

Germany's NetzDG law came into effect in early 2018, making social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter responsible for monitoring and removing hate content from their platforms. It also required digital platforms to publish regular reports on their compliance.

In May 2021, the country's parliament passed legislation to include new provisions in the law to broaden its application, including sharing details of those judged to have shared hate-filled content with the Federal police, a move that was criticised as being heavy-handed by opposition parties and the European Commission, as well as by social media companies themselves.

Sabine Frank, YouTube's regional head of public policy, wrote in the blog post:

In our opinion, this massive interference with the rights of our users is not only in conflict with data protection, but also with the German constitution and European law.

Google believes that such massive sharing of users' personal data with law enforcement is only possible after a detailed examination by a court and a judicial confirmation.

For us, the protection of our users' data is a central concern. We have therefore decided to have the relevant obligations of the legislative package examined by the Cologne Administrative Court as part of a declaratory action.

The German media censor, the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media, wants to force the hosting provider of the porn website xHamster to lock out German users.

A year ago, the State Agency for Media in North Rhine-Westphalia began to issue porn portals such as PornHub with an ultimatum: Either they establish age verification systems or there is a threat of network blocking.

Several proceedings are currently pending at the Dusseldorf Administrative Court are being contested by porn companies who argue that they label their websites according to an international standard designed to make it easy for parents to block offers on their children's devices.

However, German legislation takes the opposite approach: Portals that are harmful to minors should only be accessible if the users are proved to be of legal age. Tobias Schmid, the director of the State Agency for Media in North Rhine-Westphalian, said:

In the end it is very simple: Anyone who wants to earn money with pornography in the German market has to adhere to German laws.

The agency has now been able to determine the hosting provider for xHamster. This is not trivial, as many porn portals disguise their IT infrastructure with the help of cloud services. The media censor has now written an official to the web host.

In November of 2019, Tobias Schmid began a crusade to regulate some of porn's biggest players. Schmid , the director of the State Media Authority (LMA) of the German state North Rhine-Westphalia, wanted to enforce existing mandatory age laws on porn sites like Pornhub, YouPorn, and xHamster. In practice, this would mean that all visitors to the sites would have to upload pictures of official IDs and risk the data falling into the hands of moralists and blackmailers.

Now, after an almost year long legal scramble and porn sites refusing to back down, it looks like Schmid could get his way. After telecommunication providers like Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom refusing to voluntarily implement DNS blocks against a number of sites, including Pornhub, YouPorn, and MyDirtyHobby, German authorities are now in the process of legally enforcing the bans.

German authorities have been stepping up their efforts to fine in-country sex workers for posting sexually explicit content on open online platforms like Twitter, forcing them to take down posts on the U.S.-based -- and Free Speech-protected -- sites.

Jessica Klein of Daily Dot explained that the Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media makes it illegal to distribute pornography to which minors have access.

Government censors from a confusing patchwork of censorship bodies in state and local governments have been using that legislation to target sex workers who post sexual content on open platforms like Twitter without an age-verification firewall.

The Daily Dot interviewed Bodil Diederichsen, who works with the Medienanstalt Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein (MA HSH), a regional media censor. Diederichsen was unusually candid about the official efforts to censor sex workers, and said that her unit mainly work off tips, getting notifications from the public about possibly offending content, which also includes hate speech and other violations, before researching it themselves. Ultimately, the German censors target the posters themselves, with threats of hefty fines. Presumably this avchieves more than try to get Twitter to do the censorship.

German law allows the posting on explicit content to what they call a closed user group (i.e., behind some kind of age-verification wall). But in the case of Twitter, the process is at the discretion of these local censorship bodies, like MA HSH.

The German Government seems to have been inspired by a fair number of companies that find that the day to day posts of their users do not conform to the cleansed dreamworld Utopia that they would like to see as the backlot to their advertising. The advertisers are boycotting Facebook so as to try and force the social media companies to censor their users to make them fit for advertising.

Well it seems that this corporate censorship ideal is chiming with the authoritarians in the German government. reclaimthenet.org is reporting that the German Government is meeting to discuss ideas to require Facebook to apply even more automatic censorship to what their users are allowed to post:

The German government has indicated again that it wants to increase the regulation of Facebook content, and say that the tactics applied by the social network are not enough to prevent the spread of so-called hate speech.

Possible actions by the German government are being decided upon as a response to a campaign against Facebook originated by activist movements in the United States.

These movements, united under names such as Stop Hate for Profit, say that the social network has not contributed much in the fight against hate speech, so they urge the platform's advertisers to not advertise during the whole month of July to put pressure on Facebook until it changes its moderation policies.

This week, Berlin called for more action at a meeting on Monday of the bloc's justice ministers. German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said:

We cannot accept the public debate being distorted and poisoned. Voluntary commitments and self-responsibility are not enough.

Since 2018 there is a law in Germany that requires that content that has been reported as inappropriate be blocked or removed from social networks within 24 hours. This law encouraged social networks to dedicate themselves much more to regulating content.

For the German government and activist groups, it's still not enough. And, at this point, it's starting to look like nothing ever will be.

Germany has fined Facebook for failing to detail the number of complaints received in a transparency report.

The Federal Office for Justice (BfJ,) a subdivision of the German justice ministry, announced that it had issued Facebook a fine of 2 million euro for failing to meet the requirements of Berlin's Network Enforcement Act, a law against illegal content, in its transparency report for the first half of 2018.

In the penalty charge notice, the BfJ reprimands in particular that in the released report, the number of received complaints about unlawful content is incomplete, the office said in its announcement, adding that this is creating a distorted image in the public about the extent of unlawful content [on the platform] and the way the social network is dealing with it.

Prior to the European Parliament elections, popular YouTube users in Germany appealed to their followers to boycott the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD).

Following a miserable election result, CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer made statements suggesting that in the future, such opinions may be censored.

Popular German YouTube star Rezo urged voters to punish the CDU and its coalition partner by not voting for them. Rezo claimed that the government's inactions on critical issues such as climate change, security and intellectual property rights are destroying our lives and our future.

Rezo quickly found the support of 70 other influential YouTube presenters. But politicians accused him of misrepresenting information and lacking credibility in an effort to discredit him. Nonetheless, his video had nearly 4 million views by Sunday, the day of the election.

Experts like Prof. J3crgen Falter of the University of Mainz believe that Renzo's video swayed the opinions of many undecided voters, especially those under age 30.

Kramp-Karrenbauer commented on it during a press conference:

What would have happened in this country if 70 newspapers decided just two days before the election to make the joint appeal: 'Please don't vote for the CDU and SPD ? That would have been a clear case of political bias before the election.

What are the rules that apply to opinions in the analog sphere?  And which rules should apply in the digital sphere?

She concluded that these topics will be discussed by the CDU , saying:

I'm certain, they'll play a role in discussions surrounding media policy and democracy in the future.

Many interpreted her statements as an attack on freedom of speech and a call to censor people's opinions online. Ria Schröder, head of the Young Liberals, wrote:

The CDU's understanding of democracy If you are against me, I censor you is incomprehensible!

The right of a user on YouTube or other social media to discuss his or her political view is covered by Germany's Basic Law, which guarantees freedom of speech.

Kramp-Karrenbauer's statements may threaten her chance for the chancellorship. More importantly, they expose the mindset of Germany's political leadership.

The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opened the re:publica 2019 conference in Berlin last week with a speech about internet censorship. The World Socialist Web Site reported the speech:

With cynical references to Germany's Basic Law and the right to freedom of speech contained within it, Steinmeier called for new censorship measures and appealed to the major technology firms to enforce already existing guidelines more aggressively.

He stated, The upcoming 70th anniversary of the German Basic Law reminds us of a connection that pre-dates online and offline: liberty needs rules--and new liberties need new rules. Furthermore, freedom of opinion brings with it responsibility for opinion. He stressed that he knew there are already many rules, among which he mentioned the notorious Network Enforcement Law (Netz DG), but it will be necessary to argue over others.

He then added, Anyone who creates space for a political discussion with a platform bears responsibility for democracy, whether they like it or not. Therefore, democratic regulations are required, he continued. Steinmeier said that he felt this is now understood in Silicon Valley. After a lot of words and announcements, discussion forums, and photogenic appearances with politicians, it is now time for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Co. to finally acknowledge their responsibility for democracy, finally put it into practice.

On the 15th of March, the German Bundesrat (Federal Council) voted to amend the Criminal Code in relation to internet based services such as The onion router (Tor).

The proposed law has been lambasted as being too vague, with privacy experts rightfully fearful that the law would be overapplied. The proposal, originating from the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Justice Peter Biesenbach, would amend and expand criminal law and make running a Tor node or website illegal and punishable by up to three years in prison. According to Zeit.de, if passed, the expansion of the Criminal Code would be used to punish anyone who offers an internet-based service whose access and accessibility is limited by special technical precautions, and whose purpose or activity is directed to commit or promote certain illegal acts.

What's worse is that the proposed changes are so vaguely worded that many other services that offer encryption could be seen as falling under this new law. While the proposal does seem to have been written to target Tor hidden services which are dark net markets, the vague way that the proposal has been written makes it a very real possibility that other encrypted services such as messaging might be targeted under these new laws, as well.

Now that the motion to amend has been accepted by Bundesrat, it will be forwarded to the Federal Government for drafting, consideration, and comment. Then, within a month and a half, this new initiative will be forwarded to the German Senate, aka the Bundestag, where it will be finally voted on. Private Internet Access and many others denounce this proposal and continue to support Tor and an open internet

Private Internet Access currently supports the Tor Project and runs a number of Tor exit nodes as a part of our commitment to online privacy. PIA believes this proposed amendment to the German Criminal Code is not just bad for Tor, which was named specifically, but also for online privacy as a whole -- and we're not the only ones.

German criminal lawyer David Schietinger told Der Spiegel that he was concerned the law was too overreaching and could also mean an e-mail provider or the operator of a classic online platform with password protection.

The bill contains mainly rubber paragraphs with the clear goal to criminalize operators and users of anonymization services. Intentionally, the facts are kept very blurred. The intention is to create legal uncertainty and unavoidable risks of possible criminal liability for anyone who supports the right to anonymous communication on the Internet.

Germany's highest court last week upheld legislation that offers Wi-Fi operators immunity from acts carried out by third-party users.

The decision by the Federal Court of Justice now makes it easier for individuals and businesses to offer Wi-Fi without fearing civil prosecution for acts of copyright infringement committed by others.

Prior to the ruling, because of the legal concept known as Störerhaftung, or interferer's liability, a third party who played no deliberate part in someone else's actions could be held responsible for them. As a result, Wi-Fi hot spots are few and far between in Germany. Visitors from abroad have found themselves shut out at public venues and unable to access the web like they could in other countries.

Copyright holders are still able to get court orders requiring WiFi providers to block copyright infringing websites.

Internet censors in training

It hasn't taken long for Germany's new internet censorship to be used against the trivial name calling of politicians.

A recent German law was intended to put a stop to hate speech, but its difficult and commercially expensive to bother considering every case on its merits, so its just easier and cheaper for internet companies to censor everything asked for.

So of course easily offended politician are quick to ask for trivial name calling insults to be taken down. But now there's a twist, for an easily offended politician, it is not enough for Facebook to block an insult in Germany, it must be blocked worldwide.

Courthouse News Service reports that a German court has indulged a politician's hypocritical outrage to demand the disappearance of an insulting comment posted to Facebook.

Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, objected to a Facebook post calling her a dirty Nazi swine for her opposition to same-sex marriage. Facebook immediately complied, but Weidel's lawyers complained it hadn't been vanished hard enough, pointing out that German VPN users could still access the comment.

Facebook's only comment, via Reuters, was to note it had already blocked the content in Germany , which is all the law really requires.

Of course once you allow mere insults to be censorable, you then hit the issue of fairness. Insults against some PC favoured groups are totally off limits and are considered to be a PC crime of the century, whilst insults against others (eg white men) are positively encouraged.

A Berlin court has issued an injunction ordering Facebook not to block a user and not to delete a comment

The order appears to be the first such court intervention against censorship in Germany.

Last year a new law called the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) came into effect that effectively frces Facebook to over censor just in case it gets hit by ludicrously large fines. And it was an example of this over reaction by Facebook that is being challenged in court

The comment in question was placed by Gabor B under a Basler Zeitung article that referenced anti-immigrant statements by Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister. The Germans are becoming ever more stupid, Gabor B's comment, posted in January, read. No wonder, since they are every day littered with fake news from the left-wing Systemmedien about 'skilled workers', declining unemployment rates or Trump.

When Facebook removed his comment and hit him with a 30-day account suspension, Gabor B retained conservative Hamburg lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel who is well known for taking on free-expression cases and is running something of a crusade against what he sees as Facebook's overenthusiastic application of the NetzDG.

A German law requiring social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to remove reported hate speech without enough time to consider the merits of the report is set to be revised following criticism that too much online content is being blocked.

The law, called NetzDG for short, is an international test case and how it plays out is being closely watched by other countries considering similar measures.

German politicians forming a new government told Reuters they want to add an amendment to help web users get incorrectly deleted material restored online.

The lawmakers are also pushing for social media firms to set up an independent body to review and respond to reports of offensive content from the public, rather than leaving to the social media companies who by definition care more about profits than supporting free speech.

Such a system, similar to how video games are policed in Germany, could allow a more considered approach to complex decisions about whether to block content, legal experts say.

Facebook, which says it has 1,200 people in Germany working on reviewing posts out of 14,000 globally responsible for moderating content and account security, said it was not pursuing a strategy to delete more than necessary. Richard Allan, Facebook's vice president for EMEA public policy said:

People think deleting illegal content is easy but it's not. Facebook reviews every NetzDG report carefully and with legal expertise, where appropriate. When our legal experts advise us, we follow their assessment so we can meet our obligations under the law.

Johannes Ferchner, spokesman on justice and consumer protection for the Social Democrats and one of the architects of the law said:

We will add a provision so that users have a legal possibility to have unjustly deleted content restored.

Thomas Jarzombek, a Christian Democrat who helped refine the law, said the separate body to review complaints should be established, adding that social media companies were deleting too much online content. NetzDG already allows for such a self-regulatory body, but companies have chosen to go their own way instead. According to the coalition agreement, both parties want to develop the law to encourage the establishment of such a body.

Authorities in Germany said they have received far fewer complaints from citizens than expected since the country's social network censorship law (NetzDG) went into effect 01 January, reported Heise Online.

Germany's Federal Office for Justice (BfJ), the division of Germany's Federal Minister of Justice responsible for enforcing the law said they have received only 205 complaints since January, less than 1% of the amount predicted. The German government had assumed that citizens would file roughly 25,000 complaints with the BfJ .

The new German law that compels social media companies to remove hate speech and other illegal content can lead to unaccountable, overbroad censorship and should be promptly reversed, Human Rights Watch said today. The law sets a dangerous precedent for other governments looking to restrict speech online by forcing companies to censor on the government's behalf. Wenzel Michalski, Germany director at Human Rights Watch said:

Governments and the public have valid concerns about the proliferation of illegal or abusive content online, but the new German law is fundamentally flawed. It is vague, overbroad, and turns private companies into overzealous censors to avoid steep fines, leaving users with no judicial oversight or right to appeal.

Parliament approved the Network Enforcement Act , commonly known as NetzDG, on June 30, 2017, and it took full effect on January 1, 2018. The law requires large social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, to promptly remove "illegal content," as defined in 22 provisions of the criminal code , ranging widely from insult of public office to actual threats of violence. Faced with fines up to 50 million euro, companies are already removing content to comply with the law.

At least three countries -- Russia, Singapore, and the Philippines -- have directly cited the German law as a positive example as they contemplate or propose legislation to remove "illegal" content online. The Russian draft law, currently before the Duma, could apply to larger social media platforms as well as online messaging services.

Two key aspects of the law violate Germany's obligation to respect free speech, Human Rights Watch said. First, the law places the burden on companies that host third-party content to make difficult determinations of when user speech violates the law, under conditions that encourage suppression of arguably lawful speech. Even courts can find these determinations challenging, as they require a nuanced understanding of context, culture, and law. Faced with short review periods and the risk of steep fines, companies have little incentive to err on the side of free expression.

Second, the law fails to provide either judicial oversight or a judicial remedy should a cautious corporate decision violate a person's right to speak or access information. In this way, the largest platforms for online expression become "no accountability" zones, where government pressure to censor evades judicial scrutiny.

At the same time, social media companies operating in Germany and elsewhere have human rights responsibilities toward their users, and they should act to protect them from abuse by others, Human Rights Watch said. This includes stating in user agreements what content the company will prohibit, providing a mechanism to report objectionable content, investing adequate resources to conduct reviews with relevant regional and language expertise, and offering an appeals process for users who believe their content was improperly blocked or removed. Threats of violence, invasions of privacy, and severe harassment are often directed against women and minorities and can drive people off the internet or lead to physical attacks.

...Read the full article from hrw.org

Germany's justice minister fell victim to the rules he himself championed against online social media when one of his tweets was deleted following several complaints.

The censored tweet dated back to 2010, when Heiko Maas was not yet minister. in the tweet he had called Thilo Sarrazin, a politician who wrote a controversial book on Muslim immigrants, an idiot.

Maas told Bild on Monday that he did not receive any information from Twitter about why the tweet was deleted, or whether it would be deleted from Twitter.

Germany meanwhile signalled on Monday it was open to amending the controversial law which combats online hate speech. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said an evaluation would be carried out within six months to examine how well the new law was working.

Germany's NetzDG internet censorship law has been in force since the New Year and has already sparked multiple controversies. Opposition parties across the political spectrum already say its time for change.

Senior figures in the rival Free Democratic (FDP), Green and Left parties on Sunday demanded lawmakers replace Germany's recently passed online hate speech law. The call comes after Twitter decided to delete allegedly offensive statements by far-right politicians and suspend the account of a German satirical magazine.

The last few days have emphatically shown that private companies cannot correctly determine whether a questionable online statement is illegal, satirical or tasteless yet still democratically legitimate, the FDP's general secretary Nicola Beer told Germany weekly Die Welt am Sonntag .

Beer said Germany needed a law similar to the one the FDP proposed before Christmas that would give an appropriately endowed authority the right to enforce the rule of law online rather than give private companies the right to determine the illegality of flagged content.

Green Party Chairwoman Simone Peter has also called for a replacement law that would take away the right of private companies to make decisions regarding flagged content. He said:

It is not acceptable for US companies such as Twitter to influence freedom of expression or press freedoms in Germany. Last year, we proposed a clear legal alternative that would hold platforms such as Twitter accountable without making them judges.

Greens' internet policy spokesman, Konstantin von Notz, also criticized the current statute, telling the newspaper that the need for reform the law was overdue.

Left leader Sarah Wagenknecht added:

The law is a slap in the face of all democratic principles because, in a constitutional state, courts rather than private companies make decisions about what is lawful and what is not.

The Twitter account of German satirical magazine Titanic was blocked after it parodied anti-Muslim comments by AfD MP Beatrix von Storch.

She accused police of trying to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men by putting out a tweet in Arabic.

On Tuesday night, the magazine published a tweet parodying von Storch, saying:

The last thing that I want is mollified barbarian, Muslim, gang-raping hordes of men.

Titanic said on Wednesday its Twitter account had been blocked over the message, presumably as a result of a new law requiring social media sites to immediately block hateful comments on threat of massive fines. There is no time allowed or economic reason for assessing the merits of censorship claims, so social media companies are just censoring everything on demand, just in case.

Germany starts enforcing an internet censorship law where contested content has to be taken down pronto by social media who will suffer massive fines of they don't comply.

The law is supposedly targeted at obviously illegal hate speech, but surely it will be used to take down content anyone doesn't like for any reason. The threats of fines and short time allowed simply means that websites will opt for the easiest and most economic policy, and that is to take down anything contested.

The new law states the sites that do not remove obviously illegal posts could face fines of up to 50m euro. The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about law-breaking material.

Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law's provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law's main focus but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and Russian social network VK. Other sites such as Vimeo and Flickr could also be caught up in its provisions.

Facebook has reportedly recruited several hundred staff in Germany to deal with reports about content that breaks the NetzDG and to do a better job of monitoring what people post.

Update: First examples of fair free speech being censored in Germany

5th January 2018. See  article from politico.eu

Sophie Passmann is an unlikely poster child for Germany's new online hate speech laws.

The 24-year-old comedian from Cologne posted a satirical message on Twitter early on New Year's Day, mocking the German far right's fear that the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that have entered the country in recent years would endanger Germany's culture. Instead of entertaining her more than 14,000 Twitter followers , Passmann's tweet was blocked within nine hours by the American social media giant, telling users in Germany that Passmann's message had run afoul of local laws.

...Read the full article from politico.eu

Update: German censorship law is a sin against free speech

5th January 2018. See  article from dailymail.co.uk

A top-selling German newspaper has called for a new social media hate speech law to be axed after labelling it a sin against freedom of opinion.

The law which took effect on January 1 can impose fines of up to 2£44million on sites that fail to remove hate speech promptly.

The Bild newspaper, under the headline Please spare us the thought police!, says the new law risks making martyrs out of anti-immigrant politicians whose posts are deleted.

Update: Germany's AfD party seeks to turn online censorship to its advantage

5th January 2018. See article from dw.com

Germany's rightwing AfD party have been busy with political posters pointing out that they will be the likely victims of censorship under Germany's new law.

And they will certainly have a good claim. The new law will surely over censor, and any complaint will end up in a censored post, regardless of the merits of the claim. A slightly UnPC post by AfD is likely to be blocked, and so the AfD will rightly be able to highlight the censorship.

The publicity for examples of censorship will surely chime with a significant proportion of the German population, and so will add to the general level of disaffection with the political elite.

Perhaps Germany ought to at least ensure that censorship should be based on the merits of the case, not implemented by a commercial company who only cares about the cheapest possible method of meeting the censorship requirements.

Germany's new internet censorship law came into force on 1st October. The law nominally targets 'hate speech', but massively high penalties coupled with ridiculously short time scales allowed to consider the issues, mean that the law ensures that anything the authorities don't like will have to be immediately censored...just in case.

Passed earlier this summer, the law will financially penalize social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, if they don't remove hate speech, as per its definition in Germany's current criminal code within 24 hours. They will be allowed up to a week to decide for comments that don't fall into the blatant hate speech category. The top fine for not deleting hate speech within 24 hours is 50 million euro though that would be for repeatedly breaking the law, not for individual cases.

Journalists, lawyers, and free-speech advocates have been voicing their concerns about the new law for months. They say that, to avoid fines, Facebook and others will err on the side of caution and just delete swathes of comments, including ones that are not illegal. They worry that social media platforms are being given the power to police and effectively shut down people's right to free opinion and free speech in Germany.

The German Journalists Association (DJV) is calling on journalists and media organizations to start documenting all deletions of their posts on social media as of today. The borders of free speech must not be allowed to be drawn by profit-driven businesses, said DJV chairman Frank 3cberall in a recent statement.

Reporters Without Borders also expressed their strong opposition to the law when it was drafted in May, saying it would contribute to the trend to privatize censorship by delegating the duties of judges to commercial online platforms -- as if the internet giants can replace independent and impartial courts.

Social media companies in Germany face fines of up to 50m euros if they fail to remove obviously illegal content in time. From October, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites with more that two million users in Germany must take down posts containing hate speech or other criminal material within 24 hours. Content that is not obviously unlawful must be assessed within seven days.

Failure to comply will result in a 5m euro penalty, which could rise to 50m euros depending on the severity of the offence.

Facebook responded in a statement:

We believe the best solutions will be found when government, civil society and industry work together and that this law as it stands now will not improve efforts to tackle this important societal problem.

German MPs voted in favour of the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) law after months of deliberation, on the last legislative day before the Bundestag's summer break.

Opponents  responded the tight time limits are unrealistic, and will lead to accidental censorship as technology companies err on the side of caution and delete ambiguous posts to avoid paying penalties.

The bill has faced criticism from human right's campaigners. Many of the violations covered by the bill are highly dependent on context, context which platforms are in no position to assess, wrote the UN Special Rapporteur to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, David Kaye. He added that the obligations placed upon private companies to regulate and take down content raises concern with respect to freedom of expression.

The law may still be chllenged in Brussels, where campaigners have claimed it breaches EU laws.

German authorities want the right to look at private messages on services such as WhatsApp to try and prevent terrorism. Ministers have also agreed to lower the age limit for fingerprinting minors to six from 14 for asylum seekers.

Ministers from central government and federal states said encrypted messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, allow militants and criminals to evade traditional surveillance. We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law, interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters.

Among the options Germany is considering is source telecom surveillance, where authorities install software on phones to relay messages before they are encrypted. That is now illegal.

Austria is also planning laws to make it easier to monitor encrypted messages as well as building out a linked network of cameras and other equipment to read vehicle licence plates.

Meanwhile Japan is also introducing mass snooping in the name of the prevention of terrorism. See  Japan passes 'brutal' counter-terror law despite fears over civil liberties from theguardian.com

German ministers have recently approved plans to fine technology companies if they fail to censor posts that are claimed to be hate speech or 'fake news'.

The law introduces fines to the tune of approximately £42.7m if technology companies do not censor complalined about posts within 24 hours of it being reported (or seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases). The approval comes one month after the draft law, the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, was unveiled.

Google, Facebook and Twitter are likely to be particularly affected.

Many have raised concerns over the censorship process. The head of the Digital Society Association, Volker Tripp, said: It is the wrong approach to make social networks into a content police.

The implementation of the law will now mean that all contended posts will now be rapidly and routinely removed regardless of the voracity of the complaint. After all this is the age when complainants are always right.

For weeks, the German and international public sphere has been bombarded with a campaign against so-called fake news. Now Der Spiegel is reporting that the government now wants to establish a Defence Centre against Misinformation , a type of censorship and propaganda agency.

The Defence Centre will be set up in the Federal Press Office under Steffen Seibert. The new centre is supposed to strengthen the political power of defence of the population and force social networks such as Facebook, Google and Twitter to censor content posted by users.

The acceptance of a post-factual age would amount to political capitulation, an internal paper quoted by Der Spiegel said. The paper insisted that authentic political communication remains crucial for the 21 century as well. Accordingly, wide-reaching measures would have to be formulated to deal with the disinformation campaign, fake news and the manipulation of public opinion.

The World Socialist Web Site notes:

In reality the plans for an Orwellian Truth Ministry have nothing to do with concerns about false news reports. Instead, the established parties, the state media and private media corporations fear that they are losing their monopoly on public opinion. The Internet has provided millions of people with the possibility, for the first time, of obtaining access to information that has not been selected and filtered by the official media. This has been behind the fear in the media and political parties.

The ruling class is reacting to growing social tensions and political discontent in the same way it has in the past: with police, prosecution and the suppression of free speech.

Maybe German politicians are just panicking about the unpopularity of their free-for-all immigration and refugee policy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is at the centre of a criminal investigation in Germany into whether Facebook adequately censors  Nazi-themed content posted on the social network.

Facebook's Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, and its European policy director, Richard Allan, are also under investigation, according to German newspaper Der Spiegel. All three have been accused by Chan-jo Jun, a Bavarian lawyer, of failing to ensure posts on Facebook containing racist abuse, threats of violence and Holocaust denial are removed.

Jun said he identified more than 430 posts on Facebook which he found offensive which were reported to Facebook but never deleted. Instead, he said Facebook sent him a generic response dismissing the posts as harmless.

According to Der Spiegel, prosecutors in Munich have now opened a preliminary investigation and are looking into whether there is enough evidence of a criminal offence. Under German law, Facebook is legally obliged to remove racist or Nazi-themed content as soon as it becomes aware of it.

Facebook has dismissed the allegations, saying they lack merit, and insists that none of its employees have broken any laws.

Germanpulse has published an interesting piece about German politicians expecting social media websites to pre-censors posts that the government doesn't like:

We have reported on the German government's war against social media giants Facebook, Twitter and Google many times over the last year as the country tries to rid the popular sites of any signs of hate speech. While the companies have made attempts to appease government officials with stricter enforcement, each move is said to still not be enough. The question is: is Germany taking the fight too far?

Volker Kauder, a member of the CDU, spoke with Der Spiegel this week to say the time for roundtables is over. I've run out of patience, and argues that Facebook, Twitter and Google have failed and should pay 50,000 euro ($54,865) fines for not providing a strict level of censorship.

All major social media sites do provide tools to report hate speech offenders, but Kauder isn't the only one to argue that the tool is ineffective.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas made a statement that only 46 percent of the comments were erased by Facebook, while a mere one percent were taken care of by Twitter.

Maas' solution is not much different from Kauder's, as he told Handelsblatt that the companies should face legal consequences.

...Read the full article from germanpulse.com

Der Spiegel has also published an opinion piece showing a little exasperation with trying to get comments censored by Facebook.

In June, the national body made up of justice ministers from the 16 federal states in Germany launched a legislative initiative to introduce a law which, if passed, would require operators of Internet platforms to immediately disclose the identity of users whose online actions are the subject of criminal proceedings. The law explicitly covers companies that are not based in Germany, but in fact do business here.

Justice Minister Maas must now introduce the draft law to Chancellor Merkel's cabinet, but he's hesitant out of fear of a backlash among a net community that still views Facebook as a symbol of Internet freedom. So far, he has done little that goes beyond appeals. If he wanted too, however, Maas could push for a further tightening of the country's telecommunications law. All that would be needed is a clause stipulating that every Internet company that does business in Germany would be required to name one person within the firm who is a resident in the country who could be held liable under German law.

...Read the full article from spiegel.de

German police have carried out a series of raids, targeting people suspected of posting alleged hate content on social media. The co-ordinated raids on 60 addresses were the first time the authorities had acted on this issue in such an extreme way.

Police comments on the issue suggest that the target of the raids were for comments that were considered right-wing extremism. However it is difficult to interpret the background when both the police and newspaper statements are contorted by the politically correct requirement to not mention islam.

Holger Munch, president of Germany's federal criminal police authority, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) said: Today's action makes it clear that police authorities of the federal and state governments act firmly against hate and incitement on the internet. He said politically motivated hate crime on the internet had increased significantly in the wake of the European refugee crisis.

Under pressure from the German authorities, Facebook, Twitter and Google agreed at the end of last year to delete such speech from their services within 24 hours. Facebook also agreed to a series of further measures including:

Partnering with a German group of multimedia service providers to solve the problem

Launching a task force to deal with hate speech on the internet

A propaganda campaign to promote counter speech in German, drawing in experts to develop ways to combat racism through discussions on social media.

Berlin Police completed a large scale raid on internet users Wednesday. Police ransacked ten separate apartments. Nine people were arrested and are accused of posting messages critical of migrants, migrant helpers and some anti-semitic slogans on social networks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter.

The men were not connected by membership of far right groups. Police spokesman Stefan Redlich said that while many of the men shared anti-migrant views, the men do not know each other according to previous findings, and there was no evidence of any planned conspiracy to commit crime among them. Redlich justified the raids saying they were maybe, people who just once expressed their hate-opinion.

Police announced that the raids show Germans that they are not as safe online as they might think. They say that anyone who says something xenophobic, spreads hate toward migrants, or shares what they consider to be xenophobic music, may be next on the list of apartments to be raided in the future.

Germany has banned a far-right website for spreading racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic content and arrested two people in a clampdown on hate crime.

Material on the website included banned Nazi slogans and the denial of the Holocaust as well as incitement of violence against foreigners, the prosecutors' office said.

The ban on the Altermedia Deutschland platform came as raids were carried out in homes in four German states as well as in the northeastern Spanish town of Lloret de Mar.

The two arrested people were the administrators of the Altermedia website and therefore responsible for its content that was served from a hosting company in Russia. German officials have asked Russia to take down the website.

The head of Germany's domestic intelligence, Hans-Georg Maassen, told reporters that:

There is the danger of a gray zone developing between far-right extremists, right-wing conservatives and citizen protesters with significant potential for violence.

Meanwhile Dutch far right website speaks of police taking action against people who tweet too much

28th January 2016. See  article from neurope.eu

Dutch police have been visiting the homes of people critical of asylum centres on Twitter, urging them to delete posts.

In recent months, police have visited the homes of many more people that criticised the plans for asylum centres. In October 2015, in Leeuwarden about twenty opponents of the programs received police visits at home. It happened in Enschede, and in some places in the Brabant, where, according to the Dutch media, people who had been critical of the arrival of refugees and ran a page on social media on the topic were told to stop.

A spokesman for the national police acknowledged to Handelsblad that there are ten intelligence units of digital detectives monitoring in real time Facebook pages and Twitter accounts and looking for posts that go too far .

Facebook has launched a censorship campaign designed to silence hate speech, extremism and racism in Europe.

It unveiled its Online Civil Courage Initiative following months of pressure from the German government.

Although Facebook insists its strategy is about combating extremism, it does not make it clear whether this means Islamic terrorism, right wing racism or both.

Announcing the launch of the initiative, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, said:

The best cure for bad ideas is good ideas. The best remedy for hate is tolerance. Hate speech has no place in our society - not even on the Internet. Facebook is not a place for the dissemination of hate speech or incitement to violence.

Prosecutors in Hamburg have launched an investigation into the European head of Facebook over the website's alleged failure to remove racist hate speech.

German politicians and celebrities have voiced 'concern' about the rise of xenophobic comments in German on Facebook and on other social media as the country struggles to cope with the million refugees who have responded to the country's inviitation.

Facebook's Hamburg-based managing director for northern, central and eastern Europe , Martin Ott, may be held responsible for the social platform not removing hate speech. This move follows an investigation into three other Facebook managers started last month.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has previously urged Facebook to do more on the matter.

Facebook said it would not commenting on the investigation. But we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees.

With enormous numbers of refugees prompting significant numbers of hateful posts on social media, German prosecutors are considering going after Facebook itself for acting as a home for posts that advocate racial hatred and violate laws against neo-Nazi speech.

German prosecutors are investigating possible charges against three Facebook managers, prompted by a complaint that they failed to act against racist comments about Europe's refugee crisis.

The complaint came from German attorney Chan-jo Jun, of Wuerzburg. In it, he claimed to have flagged more than 60 Facebook entries that would violate German hate-speech laws. In an interview in Die Welt newspaper, he noted that the posts he flagged -- some featuring Nazi insignia and people posing while giving a Nazi salute -- are strictly forbidden by German law.

But, he said, Facebook responded to his complaints by saying the content didn't violate Facebook's community standards, and the posts were not removed. He made copies of the posts and sent them to Facebook's German managers by registered mail. In the complaint he filed, he noted:

We need to put an end to the arrogance with which some companies try to translate their system of values to Europe.

Facebook Germany encourages the dissemination of offensive, punishable content through its actions in Germany.

This week, the German tabloid Bild ran a two-page spread of nothing but hateful Facebook comments, complete with user names and profile photos. The comments were directed at the large number of refugees seeking asylum in Germany, and those who support them.