Members of the right-wing Identitarian movement attempted to storm the German justice ministry in Berlin on Friday over a proposed law to fight hate speech on social media. Maas’ proposal, dubbed the “hate speech law”, would force sites like Facebook and Twitter to delete overtly criminal content within 24 hours of it being flagged. German digital advocacy group Bitkom found in two legal assessments that Maas’ bill could violate both the German constitution as well as EU law. Under German law, the assessments concluded that the short time periods to delete comments compromise freedom of expression. Hate speech posters only then learn to articulate their posts in ways that are not noticeably illegal.

Source: The Local May 19, 2017 14:52 UTC