Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Germany Investigates Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Over Slow Removal of Hate Speech

German prosecutors are investigating Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives for failing to react to the onslaught of hate speech on their platform as well as for not deleting posts denying the Holocaust.

European countries like Germany have much stricter laws against hate speech than the United States. German law requires Facebook Germany to delete all known content which can be considered incitement of hatred.

Besides Zuckerberg, porsecutors are investigating Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, European policy director Richard Allan, and Berlin Facebook manager Eva-Maria Krishcieper.

The investigation is taking place in Bavaria and follows a complaint filed by a German technology law firm accusing Facebook of not doing enough to remove violent postings.

Social media sites in Europe have seen a rise of racist and threatening posts during an influx of migrants and refugees into Europe.

This May, the European Union released an online “code of conduct” in conjunction with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft.

The code it aimed at fighting hate speech, racism and xenophobia across Europe and requires the companies to review the “majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech” in less than 24 hours.

But in practice, Facebook users have reported that their requests for the removal of hate speech have been repeatedly ignored.

The criminal complaint lists 438 hateful or inciting posts that were reported throughout the year but not deleted.

Attorney Chan-jo Jun, filed a similar complaint in Hamburg a year ago, but believes that his chances are higher in a Bavarian court.

Facebook said the complaint had no merit. “We are not commenting on the status of a possible investigation, but we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees,” a company spokesman said.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas told an Israeli TV station, “If the companies refuse to meet their responsibility, then there will be consequences.”

Earlier this year, a criminal investigation of Zuckerberg was aborted because the regional court lacked jurisdiction. Facebook’s European operations are based in Ireland.

With Reuters

Lilly Maier is a news intern at the Forward. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @lillymmaier

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.