Hate comment

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A hate comment , also known as a hate posting , is an inhuman , for example racist, statement that is usually made against groups or individuals in a social network , in a web forum or on another website with a public comment function. The statement can also be directed against generally accepted abstract social values or defame certain world views . In 2017, the Federal Criminal Police Office registered 2,270 reports of criminally relevant hate comments. According to the police, 74 percent of these could be politically assigned to the right-wing extremist spectrum.

definition

A hate comment is when the content of the text expresses itself more than disparagingly about a group or an individual. Hate comments are, unlike expressions of opinion, without any reasoning or arguments. Some hate comments have racist , sexist , anti-Semitic , homophobic and violence-glorifying content.

Legal situation

In principle, according to Article 5, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law, everyone has the right to freely express and freely disseminate their opinion. The free right to express one's opinion is, however, subject to legal barriers where general laws (in particular criminal laws ) and provisions on the protection of honor and the protection of minors according to Article 5 (2) of the Basic Law oppose this. Hate comments do not themselves constitute a criminal offense in Germany, but criminal liability can be indicated. The offenses of insult , defamation , slander , denigration of the memory of the deceased , coercion , threat or public invitation to criminal offenses come into consideration, and ultimately also sedition .

Countermeasures

Official

In December 2015, a federal-state project group on combating hate postings was established. Every year it organizes a nationwide day of action to combat hate postings, which is coordinated by the Federal Criminal Police Office as the central office of the German police. In this context, police measures are regularly carried out as a result of the hate postings reported up to then, including house searches and interrogations. In this context, on July 13, 2016, a nationwide raid took place against members of a secret Facebook group, among others , who were accused of crimes such as sedition by means of right-wing extremist hate postings. The Bavarian Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann and the highest employer in the state police department sees “hate postings as a frequent preliminary stage for further radicalization ”.

The Federal Criminal Police Office calls for hate, agitation and verbal violence to be reported consistently to the police. Many federal states have set up an internet or online watch; where it is possible to file a criminal complaint online .

Legally

In order to curb the increasing spread of hate crime and other criminal content, especially in social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, in September 2017 the Bundestag passed the law to improve law enforcement in social networks (NetzDG), also known colloquially as the Facebook law. The law includes u. a. Fined compliance rules for providers of social networks regarding the handling of user complaints about hate comments and other criminal content on the Internet, as well as a quarterly reporting obligation of the provider to publish a German-language report on the handling of these complaints. Victims of personality violations on the Internet are also entitled to information about the infringer's inventory data as part of a court order.

On July 2, the first time a fine was imposed for violating this law. Facebook is said to have only informed about a fraction of the number of complaints it received about illegal content such as insults and false reports. "The published information does not provide a conclusive, transparent picture of the organization and the processes involved in dealing with complaints about illegal content," said the Federal Office of Justice and therefore demands a fine of 2 million from the US company's European headquarters in Ireland Euro. However, the decision is not yet legally binding (as of July 2019).

In October 2019, the responsible minister Christine Lambrecht presented key points on her agenda. One project on their agenda is a tightening of the Network Enforcement Act . Lambrecht also wants to introduce mandatory reporting. The operators should report official crimes to the police. She cited death threats , sedition and cases of serious insult as examples . This primarily refers to what is known as hate crime . On the other hand, Lambrecht rejected a real name requirement on the Internet . On October 30, 2019, the Federal Cabinet decided on a package of measures to combat right-wing extremism and hate crime, which, among other things, provides for the introduction of mandatory reporting for providers under the Network Enforcement Act to a new central office in the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to combat hate crime more effectively on the Internet . In addition, an authorization to provide information to telemedia service providers is to be created in the BKA Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure , so that the data available there on hate crime relevant under criminal law can be demanded.

Private initiatives

No Hate Speech Movement Germany

The No Hate Speech Movement is a global campaign against hate speech on the Internet initiated by the Council of Europe in 2013 . The German branch has been coordinated by the New German Media Makers Association since 2016 .

HateAid

The organization HateAid , initiated in 2017 by the NGOs Campact and Fearless Democracy , helps victims of hate speech on the Internet to defend themselves under civil law , including legal advice and legal aid . The aim is for the creators of hate postings to issue a cease and desist declaration , delete the comments and pay damages.

Online platform hassmelden.de

With hassmelden.de, the digital civil rights movement Reconquista Internet has created an online platform where hate comments, sedition , racist insults or threats whose content is presumably criminally relevant can be reported. After they have been checked for possible criminal relevance, they are passed on to the Federal Criminal Police Office for further investigations . In addition, the activists have a particularly lax approach to hate postings on Facebook. To show that hate postings on Facebook are insufficiently deleted, in February 2019 they posted a total of 153 u. a. selected and reported offensive, racist and violence-glorifying comments on Facebook. In all cases there was feedback within one day, but the result was sobering: Only 56 of the reported posts were deleted.

Network operator

The network operators themselves also take action against hateful comments according to their terms and conditions , even if the postings do not have to be deleted according to the Network Enforcement Act, i.e. are below the limit of criminal liability. How far this deletion may go in view of the fundamental right to freedom of expression has been a matter of dispute in case law for a number of years.

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Action day - police take action against hate postings on the Internet. In: Frankfurter Neue Presse . June 14, 2018, accessed July 17, 2019 .
  2. ↑ BVerfGE 7, 198 (209) : Lüth judgment .
  3. ^ Michael Sachs: Constitutional Law II - Basic Rights . 3. Edition. Springer, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-662-50363-8 , Chapter 8, Rn. 1.
  4. ↑ Scientific services of the Bundestag on the state of affairs: Legal situation in Germany on hateful comments in social networks .
  5. ↑ a b Fourth nationwide day of action against hate postings. In: press release. Bundeskriminalamt (Germany) , June 6, 2019, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Hatred on Facebook: Police raid in Nuremberg. Case from Bavaria triggers searches nationwide. In: nordbayern.de . July 13, 2016, accessed July 17, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Hendrik Wieduwilt: In the freedom vacuum . Law against hate speech on the Internet. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . July 1, 2017, accessed July 17, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Act to improve law enforcement in social networks (Network Enforcement Act - NetzDG). In: Documentation and Information System for Parliamentary Processes (DIP). German Bundestag, September 1, 2017, accessed on July 17, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Hate comments - German authority imposes a million-dollar fine on Facebook. In: ZEIT ONLINE. July 2, 2019, accessed June 1, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Christian Rath, "Not only Sunday speeches " LTO of October 10, 2019
  11. ^ Die Welt , Justice Minister wants to punish insults on the Internet more severely from October 13, 2019
  12. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , Facebook should report hatred from October 13, 2019
  13. ↑ taz , delete and track from October 16, 2019
  14. ↑ Justice Minister Lambrecht against the use of real names on the Internet
  15. ↑ Package of measures by the Federal Ministry of Justice against right-wing extremism and hate crime of October 30, 2019, accessed on November 24, 2019.
  16. ↑ No Hate Speech Movement Germany | Network. In: no-hate-speech.de. New German Media Makers , accessed on October 16, 2019 .
  17. ↑ Spiegel Online (ed.): Campaign against hatred on the Internet: Attention, attention, here comes the Federal Tax Office . July 22, 2016 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 16, 2019]).
  18. ↑ Joana Nietfeld: HateAid wants to help victims of hatred and agitation. July 4, 2019, accessed July 10, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Joana Nietfeld: Hate is extreme, punishment is extreme. In: Tagesspiegel . July 4, 2019, accessed July 10, 2019 .
  20. ^ Jörg Breithut: Reconquista Internet's reporting system - activists report hateful comments to the police. In: SPIEGEL ONLINE. March 23, 2019, accessed July 18, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Facebook may delete comments classified as "hate speech" and block users temporarily. In: Oberlandesgericht-karlsruhe.justiz-bw.de. June 28, 2018, accessed May 19, 2020 .