Anti-Immigration Hate Speech Crackdown in Germany
The large-scale sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve has left many Germans in a state of shock and anger. Roughly 1000 men groped, robbed and ripped the clothing of hundreds of women.
Many of the men involved are thought to be refugees, which has sparked anti-foreigner sentiment across social media.
Angela Merkel has always supported the influx of refugees in Germany. Image Credit: Christliches Medienmagazin pro (Flickr)
As Breibart reports, the German government has stepped in to cut down on the levels of “hate speech.” Major social networking sites agreed to work to remove the most offensive comments within 24 hours of a complaint being made about it.
Before these attacks, last September Angela Merkel confronted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in regard to the issue, and Zuckerberg was overheard to reply “we need to do some work” to remove offensive comments.
German press have reported that one of the alleged attackers told police: “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me.”
A suppression of negative comments on social media has drawn criticism from free speech advocates, many of whom argue that offensive comments should be condemned, but not banned.
Blogger Jonathan Turley takes this view. He says:
“People are now unsure what they can say about immigration, which is precisely the chilling effect that governments seek in such measure. The result is a forced silence . . . which is golden for governments like Merkel’s that do not like what they are hearing.”
Read more on this story here.
For more on free speech issues with social media, see here, here and here.
