German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has proposed a bill imposing up to $53 million in fines on social media companies like Facebook and Twitter when they fail to remove, or delay the removal of illegal content, including fake news.
“This [bill] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content,” Minister Maas said in a statement on Tuesday.
Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany welcomed the idea, saying, “We do not want an internet police or thought control, but when hatred is stoked, and the legal norms in our democracy threaten to lose their relevance, then we need to intervene.”
According to Reuters, a survey by the German justice ministry’s youth protection agency, released on Tuesday, showed that YouTube removed about 90% of illegal content within a week from its being flagged, compared with Facebook, which managed to delete or block a mere 39%.
Twitter removed only 1 percent.
A YouTube spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday that “the draft law has only just been announced and we are analyzing the details now. We will continue to improve our systems to ensure that illegal hate speech is dealt with quickly.”