Facebook Helping Germany Crack Down on Anti-Islam Speech
German police conducted a pre-dawn raid on about 60 homes this week rounding up residents accused of posting xenophobic, racist or other “right-wing extremist” content to a private Facebook group in violation of German laws against “hate speech.”
And the crackdown, while being touted by much of the media as targeting “anti-Semitism,” appears largely focused on those who are critical of Islam and the hundreds of thousands of Muslim migrants who have flooded into Germany.
The country’s federal police agency – the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA – said in a press release it was the first nationwide use of police force to combat hate speech on the Internet.
Facebook, along with Twitter and Google/YouTube, have come under fire in some quarters for letting hate speech fester on their platforms in Germany, reported technology journalist Lisa Vaas.
In December the social media giants agreed to help the German government crack down on hateful speech. They pledged to delete certain comments from their services within 24 hours to help fight a rising tide of “online racism” directed at the country’s influx of refugees, Vaas reported. (Read more from “Facebook Helping Germany Crack Down on Anti-Islam Speech” HERE)
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