A German law requiring social media platforms to immediately respond to reports of hate speech — and in some cases remove illegal comments within 24 hours of being brought to their attention — appears to be an early test of whether Twitter, owned by Elon Musk, facing significant legal ramifications for how recklessly he runs the company.
Since the self-proclaimed “freedom of speech” absolutist took over Twitter in late October and began mass layoffs and radical policy changes (including this weekend’s lifting of a permanent suspension of former US President Trump), the concern has been high. among lawmakers and social media users that Twitter could degenerate into a hellscape of little to no content moderation under its new staff-liquidating, shitpost-loving billionaire owner.
The thing is, some content moderation laws apply internationally to Twitter — and Germany has one: the “social network enforcement” law, commonly referred to as NetzDG (a shortened version of the full German name), allows for fines up to €50 million for non-compliance with reports to remove illegal hate speech.
But given Musk’s massive Twitter layoffs — and a number of notable layoffs since he took over, including the departure of the former head of trust and security, Joel Roth — it is not clear how much core content expertise and moderation tools are left internally to meet various existing legal requirements that apply to the company in international markets such as Germany and India.
By some estimates, only hundreds of employees remain on Twitter from a previous headcount of about 7,500 after Musk’s “hardcore” ultimatum to the workforce last week.
Entire international offices have reportedly been decimated, quickly drawing the attention of lawmakers – such as in Spain, where dozens of staff were reportedly laid off, prompting the Labor Minister to tweet a warning to the company earlier this month about the need to comply with local labor laws (which she followed up by saying the labor inspectorate was handling the matter after complaints from unions).
Staff in Germany were also among the dismissed international workers at Twitter – with a local union report earlier this month that a large number of software engineers had received the infamous “agree to be hardcore or resign” email from Musk late last week. Also last week Reuters reported on comments from a spokesman for the German government – who said he was following developments on Twitter with “growing concern”.
A specialist IT law firm in Germany, JunIT Rechtsanwälte, has a hearing for an injunction against Twitter this Thursday. It accuses the company of not responding to reports of hate speech and of removing illegal content as required by NetzDG law.
The company’s founder and managing partner, Chan-jo Jun, tweeted a “save the date” tag earlier this month – saying Twitter will have to answer for not responding to reports of hate speech during the public hearing where he said it would apply for platform-wide coercive measures.
Under German law, much can be classified as illegal hate speech – for example, sharing Nazi symbols or denying the Holocaust – as it has some of the strictest hate speech laws in the Western world.
So it’s clear that if Musk is trying to apply a purely American-centric flavor of free speech everywhere on Twitter — and/or simply doesn’t have enough staff working to moderate content and doesn’t have enough resources to respond to reports about illegal content – it sets him off on a direct collision course with German law to begin with.
The NetzDG law came into effect in Germany in 2017 – and was further tightened in mid-2020, when the German parliament agreed to impose a reporting obligation on platforms requiring them to report certain types of “criminal content” to the Federal Criminal Police Office.
While a further reform of the law last year aimed to strengthen user rights by increasing transparency on platforms – by requiring tech companies, among other things, to pass details of takedowns to investigators.
Although NetzDG has been in effect in Germany for several years, it has remained a subject of controversy – with critics arguing that its existence has a chilling effect on online freedom of expression by encouraging social media companies to reduce their risk and users of social media to block too much. content.
At the same time, for years the ongoing content moderation-related joke on Twitter has been for users of the platform in markets outside of Germany seeking a quick escape from the online hatred that flourished on Twitter in earlier, pre-Musk years — when the earlier leadership had seen a toxic bloom of American white supremacist and neo-Nazi expressions via lackluster and inconsistent application of purported community norms – was to move their location in the institutions to Germany and remove all of these toxic statements, since Twitter at least complied with German hate speech rules.
It would therefore now be rather ironic for German law to be the main (only?) legal tool available to accuse Musk of dismantling Twitter standards for content moderation at this point. (A pan-EU digital services law also aimed at regulating the removal of illegal content will not come into effect until February next year at the earliest).
That’s a big “if” though. Because a pressing question for international regulators is whether Musk will pay any attention to obeying speech-related laws or laws outside the US (Similarly, concerns are growing within the US about Musk-Twitter’s compliance with the FTC consent decree – what a ‘shot over the bow’ statement earlier this month by the US regulator.)
In October, the messaging platform Telegram was hit with a number of NetzDG fines in Germany, totaling around €5 million – for violations of requirements to provide channels for users to report illegal hate speech and failure to appoint a local representative to file documents. with legally binding effect – a level of punishment that probably won’t give Musk any more sleepless nights than he’s already getting from buying Twitter.
While, at least on paper, German law allows for greater penalties for breaches – which could add up for an advertising platform that has seen major advertisers flee after the Musk takeover, adding to big money worries.
Still, another question international regulators may soon face is how (or even if) they’ll be able to collect fines and enforce legal repercussions against a “self-driving” Twitter — if Musk, for example, expels all employees from the company. hits their markets and leaves no local entities to get papers.
What is their route to actually enforcing compliance?
So surely a nightmare scenario for international regulators is deliberate non-compliance by Musk – leaving them with a choice between letting him get away with publicly snubbing their rulebooks or being forced to essentially penalize local users of Twitter by issuing a ban. enact. of the service and try to block access within their own markets (to the extent that is even possible in wealthy regions like Europe where users can use VPNs to get around geographic blocks, etc.).
Politically, a service ban would likely be very unpopular to instigate — and easily tolerated by Musk as excessive censorship — to wreak havoc on lawmakers.
That’s why quick-tweeted threats from international regulators to ban Twitter (such as the one embedded below) in the coming weeks and months (and beyond…) could come across as rather hollow if none of these entities can continue and actually enforcement against disrespectful rule breakers.
(Another case that seems instructive here is Clearview AI – which has received a large number of fines from European data protection regulators in recent months, but it’s less clear whether any of these fines can actually be collected as the US company continues to deny that it breaks any rules or even if these European laws apply to its activities.)
The German court hearing looming for Twitter this week is just one early example of the unfolding legal ramifications of Musk’s takeover of Twitter. But it looks like one watch — both to see how (or indeed if) Musk-Twitter reacts to the court proceedings and legal process and for parking ticket fines that could follow if NetzDG is found to be failing to remove hate speech.
One thing is clear: Regulators everywhere need to strap in for a bumpy ride as Musk drives the Twitter clown car out of the gold mine.
