€50MILLION fine for hate speech: Social media such as Facebook and Twitter face huge payouts if they do not remove hateful posts under new German laws

The law gives social media networks 24 hours to delete or block criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases

The law gives social media networks 24 hours to delete or block criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases

Germany will fine social media networks up to 50 million euros (£44m) if they fail to remove hateful posts.

The law, passed today, gives social media networks 24 hours to delete or block obviously criminal content and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the measure to 'end the internet law of the jungle' was overdue and dismissed suggestions it would infringe freedom of speech.

Failure to comply could see a company fined up to 50 million euros, and the company's chief representative in Germany fined up to 5 million euros.

Germany has some of the world's toughest laws covering defamation, public incitement to commit crimes and threats of violence.

This includes prison sentences for Holocaust denial or inciting hatred against minorities. But few online cases are prosecuted. 

The Central Council of Jews in Germany hailed the law as 'the logical next step for effectively tackling hate speech' following the 'failure' of voluntary measures. 

The issue has taken on more urgency amid concerns fake news and racist content could sway public opinion in the run-up to a national election on September 24.

But organisations representing digital companies and journalists have accused the government of rushing a law through parliament that could damage free speech.

Facebook, which has 29 million active users in Germany - more than a third of the total population - has said it is working hard to remove illegal content.  It said it had been deleting 3,500 posts per week in Germany in the past two months.

'This law as it stands now will not improve efforts to tackle this important societal problem,' a spokesman said, adding Facebook had not been consulted enough.

Facebook noted that in May it had announced plans to add an extra 3,000 workers around the world over the next year to monitor reports of inappropriate material. This is in addition to 4,500 people already reviewing posts.

In Berlin, Facebook's partner Arvato will employ up to 700 staff for 'content moderation' by the end of the year.

A German government survey has shown that Facebook deleted just 39 percent of content deemed criminal and Twitter only 1 percent. This is despite having signed a code of conduct including  a pledge to delete hate speech within 24 hours.

However, Facebook says it has significantly improved its processes since then and is now removing 87 percent of reported posts.

Twitter has also made a number of changes, including adding new filtering options, putting limits on trolls and stopping those users from creating new accounts.

In response to criticism of the draft law, the government softened the legislation by excluding email and messenger providers. The government also agreed to opening up the option of creating joint monitoring facilities to make decisions about what content to remove.

It also made clear that a fine would not necessarily be imposed after just one infraction, but only after repeated failure.

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