Social media websites in Germany could be in for of up to 50 million euros ($54 million) for removing content too . The German government has decided to crack down on the side of online content, including hate speech, slander, news and other illegal material. Under the new law, the likes of Facebook and Twitter would be given seven days to delete content flagged as illegal, or incur a financial penalty. Any content deemed to be " criminal" would have to be removed within 24 hours. Germany's minister Heiko Maas quoted research which suggested Twitter deletes only one per cent of the hate speech it is told about by , and Facebook, 39 per cent.
Mr Maas said the new fines and were necessary due to heightening over the influence social media is having in shaping public . He said: "The biggest problem is that the social networks do not take the of their own users seriously ." He added that efforts to tackle the problem were not working, saying: "Too few comments are deleted, and they're not being deleted quickly enough." Mr Maas said all social media companies would be required to set up a complaints that must be operational 24/7. A digital organization feared that removing content within 24 hours from sites that handle more than one posts per day was " impossible".
