HIDING SOMETHING?

Germany Slaps Facebook With $2.3 Million Fine for Handling of Hate-Speech Complaints

Authorities say Facebook’s transparency report for the first half of 2018 misrepresents the actual number of complaints about illegal content.

Germany is fining Facebook $2.3 million for allegedly under-reporting complaints about illegal content, including hate speech, and misrepresenting the number of violations on the social-media platform. Germany’s Federal Office of Justice said on Tuesday that the social-media giant had only tallied certain categories of complaints received, therefore manipulating the actual extent of the results. German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said Facebook also makes it more difficult to file a complaint under the transparency law than it is to complain about a post violating Facebook’s community standards, adding that the community standards do not “correspond to the standards of the law.” Under Germany’s network transparency law, social-media companies must report how many illegal content complaints they receive, Reuters reports. Facebook reported receiving 1,048 complaints about illegal content during the second half of 2018, versus Twitter reporting over a quarter of a million for the entire year.