The German government has announced plans to impose fines on social networks which don't move quickly enough in remove undesirable content like fake news from their platforms. This will be enforced through social media companies being required to 'explain rules and complaint procedures clearly to users and follow up on each complaint.' Any content that is clearly illegal has to be taken down within 24 hours while other content of this nature must be removed or blocked within 7 days. The belief behind some of these measures being enforced is that internet companies aren't doing enough in terms of their responsibility with Facebook and Twitter according to the federal minister for justice and consumer protection missing their 'chance to improve their takedown practices' calling for the need for legal regulations. This is cited as being an extremely important moment in what has so far been a struggle between democracy and digital technology, with the latter now being an area where oddly enough, companies increasingly determine what people can access on their platforms. While in the early days of the web this would've been excusable, in a time where digital giants are dominant evident how half of the public turned to social media to learn about the 2016 presidential election and the majority of Americans get their news in general via social media, it is extremely questionable. And while 'shirking' this responsibility is understandable in the sense that it would be quite costly to the giants, it's still an aspect which they need to uphold. There is still though, the argument that placing such a responsibility on social media companies could pose threats to things like freedom of speech and in that sense they shouldn't even be treated like 'conventional publishers' in the first place. However perhaps a substantial fine is all that's actually needed to really get the companies to behave in the way that they want them to.
- The German government has published a draft law imposing fines of up to €50m on social networks that fail to promptly remove undesirable content like fake news and hate speech from their platforms
When content that's effectively hate speech is concerned, a fine of up to €50m appears to be a good way of making social media companies consider the issue as more significant. It'll have to be kept an eye out on as to whether we'll see this legislation even being passed in the first place since at the moment it only exists as a draft, however if it does what'll truly be interesting if social media companies really embrace more responsibility because and also if other nations will follow suit with their actions.
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