German officials issued a 2 million euro ($2.3 million) fine to Facebook Tuesday, accusing the company of violating the country’s new hate speech law.
In a Tuesday statement, Germany’s Federal Office of Justice said the social media giant underreported the number of hate speech complaints received in the first half of 2018. They accused Facebook of failing to meet the law’s transparency requirements.
Under the controversial German provision NetzDG, passed in 2017, social media networks have 24 hours to act after being alerted to potentially illegal or hateful material on their sites. Companies have a week to deal with complex cases.
According to CNBC, Facebook received 1,704 complaints and removed 362 posts between January 2018 and June 2018. In the second half of 2018, the company received 1,048 complaints, according to Reuters.
Transparency reports by YouTube and Twitter both show more than 250,000 complaints for 2018.
Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said the form used to file a complaint under NetzDG was harder to find on Facebook than other social media sites.
“It is quite clear that Facebook’s community standards do not correspond to the standards of the law,” Lambrecht told reporters.
Germany’s hate speech laws are arguably the strictest of any Western country. Most of the removed posts attacked people based on their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.
“We want to remove hate speech as quickly and effectively as possible and work hard to do so,” a Facebook spokesman said. “We are confident our published NetzDG reports are in accordance with the law, but as many critics have pointed out, this law lacks clarity.”
NetzDG only applies to social media networks with more than 2 million members and requires companies to build an organized complaints structure. Facebook reportedly hired hundreds of additional staff to ensure compliance with the new German regulation.
This accusation comes as Facebook continues to draw criticism in the United States for its potentially biased handling of content deemed hate speech.
Facebook did not say whether it would appeal the fine.
