‘Before, it was a black box’: Platforms report how they delete illegal content in Germany

It’s been six months since Germany started enforcing a new law holding social networks accountable for the content they host, and last week, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter reported on the content they’ve deleted or blocked in that country so far. With similar regulation being considered in the U.K., politicians there are closely watching how German lawmakers are working with U.S. tech platforms.

The Network Enforcement Act, or NetzDG, requires platforms to take down suspected illegal content within 24 hours or seven days, depending on the charge, or risk eye-watering €50 million ($60 million) fines. Every six months the platforms are required to report their findings. Here are the headline numbers:

• Twitter received 264,000 complaints and blocked or removed 11 percent of the reported content.
• YouTube received 215,000 complaints and removed or blocked 27 percent of the reported content, most of which was hate speech or political extremism.
• Facebook received 1,704 complaints and removed or blocked 21 percent.
• YouTube removed nearly 93 percent of the content that needed to be blocked within 24 hours of receiving the complaint.
• In 637 cases, Twitter took longer than 24 hours to remove content.
• Most of Facebook’s content deletion took place within 24 hours and 24 took more than a week
• YouTube asked for help from an outside law firm specializing in criminal law 40 times.

“The law shows the players are taking obligations seriously,” said Ruben Hofmann, a partner at law firm Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek. “Before the publication of the reports, it was a black box. The free word is well protected by Germany’s constitution and civil code. If we ask platforms to delete content, then the boundaries must be quite high, that it’s reached a criminal act.”