Lawmakers in Germany are working to institute large fines against social media companies that fail to quickly remove hate speech. Those fines would be issued against Facebook and others that don't quite comply with the country's standard. Under the existing draft law, the fine could be up to $55.8 million.
Critics of the proposal are worried it could result in censorship. Facebook and the rest aren't fans of the legislation, so they've been self-implementing better anti-hate speech systems.
Companies would be given 24 hours to remove illegal content.
There are similar efforts being pursued in France and the UK.
Germany's "Social Networks Enforcement Law" was proposed in March by Justice Minister Heiko Maas.
The point of the proposed legislation is that statements that violate the law must be deleted. These are not examples of freedom of speech. They're attacks on freedom of speech. The worst danger to freedom of speech is a situation where threats go unpunished.- Maas
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