Twitter users are taking advantage of Germany’s strict anti-Nazism laws in order to create a more pleasant social media experience.
As reported by CNBC, a simple switch in location settings supposedly allows users to reap the benefits of the country’s decades-old hate speech laws.
After the Holocaust, Germany introduced laws that prohibited hatred against a group defined by its ethnic origins. However, it’s only recently the laws have been amended to reflect more modern forms of communication.
In 2017, Germany passed legislation which threatened companies with 50 million euro (AUD$82 million) fines if they failed to remove “hateful speech” from their platforms 24 hours after it’s flagged.
The legislation is commonly known at NetzDG and puts more of the burden of social media moderation back on the platforms themselves. Companies are required to publish a report twice a year.
German authorities began enforcing the law in 2018. In February this year, Facebook was fined 2 million Euro (AUD$3.27 million) for an ‘incomplete’ report about how many complaints had been received.
The law is significantly stricter than those in the US or Australia.
Here, social media posts fall to the outlet’s terms and services on what constitutes hate speech.
After the Christchurch shootings earlier in the year, which were livestreamed on Facebook, the Australian federal parliament moved quickly to pass laws that attempted to prevent a repeat occurrence.
The laws prohibits the hosting of “abhorrent violent material” which the government defines as “terrorism, murder, attempted murder, torture, rape and kidnapping”.
Legislation specific to online hate speech has yet to be explored.
In a statement to CNBC, a Twitter spokesperson said hate speech censorship in Germany “is based on reports under NetzDG (which users can file) and valid legal process that is brought to our attention from law enforcement, legal entities etc.”
Where tweets have been removed due to the law, a Twitter includes a disclosure explaining why the content has been hidden.
However, the laws don’t make Germany a Twitter hate-free paradise.
Although laws are stricter, there is no catchall for hateful speech - the laws rely on reporting to take effect.
“It’s absolutely true that there’s less Nazi content available here [than in the U.S.],” Jillian York, the Germany-based director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation told CNBC.
“But, you have to actually report it under that queue to take it down.”
In 2017, Twitter expanded its global violent extremist policy to ban any content that promoted or was affiliated with noted extremist groups.
Under the new policy, tweets that are determined to engage in terrorist acts, included terrorist insignia or distributed propaganda are removed.
