The Justice Minister proposed a law on Tuesday that could see social networks such as Facebook slapped with heavy fines if they fail to wipe illegal hate speech from their sites. A surge of hate speech on Facebook and other social media in Germany has raised the political heat on the companies ahead of a general election in September. He said that of the content reported by users deemed to run afoul of Germany's strict hate speech laws, Twitter only took down one percent and Facebook 39 percent. Companies would also be required to file quarterly reports on their efforts to crack down on hate speech. This month Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries, like Maas a Social Democrat, warned against a sweeping law, saying responsibility for enforcing hate speech legislation should not be "privatized".

Source: The Local March 14, 2017 13:18 UTC