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Zuckerberg and Facebook face German probe over racist posts
Investigation into hate speech comes amid German debate about tech giants
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg ©
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Prosecutors in Munich launched the preliminary probe in response to a criminal complaint from Chan-jo Jun, a German lawyer who has been waging a long-running campaign against hate speech on Facebook.
Under German law, social media are obliged to delete any posts that incite to violence as soon as they are reported. Yet Mr Jun claims Facebook has failed to act on dozens of examples of racist rhetoric that he has passed on to the company.
He cites one Karina S who wrote in reference to a family of Syrian refugees: “pour petrol over them and set them on fire!”
A spokesperson for the social network said Mr Jun’s allegations “lack merit” and there was “no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees”.
“There is no place for hate on Facebook,” the spokesperson said. “We work closely with partners to fight hate speech and foster counter-speech.”
The investigation comes at a time of mounting concern in German political circles at the 112 per cent increase in hate speech in the German-language internet over the past year.
Germany’s Nazi past — and the huge influx of refugees from the Middle East in recent months — mean the government is especially sensitive to any manifestations of violent racism.
The alarm about hate speech has combined with a growing distrust in Germany at what is seen as the unbridled market power of US tech companies like Google. as well as support for EU efforts to rein in the search giant.
Chancellor Angela Merkel took the German debate about ‘big tech’ into new territory last month when she expressed concern that search engines may distort public perceptions and debate to the detriment of democracy.
Facebook says any content that includes hate speech, incitement or glorification of violence violates its community standards and urges people to use its reporting tools so offensive posts can be removed.
But Berlin thinks it is not doing enough to address the problem. Ms Merkel raised the issue at a meeting with Mr Zuckerberg in New York in September last year, and soon after, Facebook agreed to take part in a German task force on hate speech.
Facebook comes from a free speech culture and they don’t know about criminal offences such as incitement to racial violence or denying the Holocaust, which are explained by the special nature of German history
Heiko Maas
However, Heiko Maas, the German justice minister, said this week that Facebook only deleted 46 per cent of unlawful posts it was alerted to. He said the authorities were carrying out a monitoring exercise to see how social media responded to user complaints, which will run till March next year. If the results were unsatisfactory, he said, “we will have to take legislative measures”. These could include making companies such as Facebook and Twitter criminally responsible for racist posts.
Mr Maas said the problem was that Germany had laws other countries did not. “Facebook comes from a free speech culture and they don’t know about criminal offences such as incitement to racial violence or denying the Holocaust, which are explained by the special nature of German history,” he told reporters this week.
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