%%**Tags:**%% # NetzDG ## TL;DR - NetzDG stands for Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz) and was enacted in Germany on October 1, 2017. The law was proposed by the German Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection to combat hate speech and fake news on social media platforms. - The primary goal of NetzDG is to ensure that social media platforms promptly remove illegal content, such as hate speech, incitement to violence, and defamation, within specific timeframes. It aims to protect individuals from online abuse and maintain a safer online environment. - NetzDG applies to social media platforms with over 2 million users in Germany, making platforms like [Facebook](Facebook.md), [Twitter](Twitter.md), and [YouTube](YouTube.md) subject to the law. Companies are required to establish a transparent and efficient complaint management system to handle user reports regarding illegal content. - Platforms must remove or block illegal content within 24 hours after receiving a valid complaint, and non-obvious cases within seven days. - Companies failing to comply can face substantial fines, which vary based on the platform's size and the severity of the offense. - NetzDG faced criticism from various parties, including human rights advocates, who raised concerns about potential limitations on freedom of speech. - Critics argue that the law places the responsibility of determining the legality of content on private companies, which could lead to over-censorship. - Some platforms implemented stricter content moderation policies to avoid hefty fines, resulting in controversial removals and restrictions of non-illegal content. - NetzDG inspired similar legislation discussions in other countries aiming to regulate online content more effectively. ## Aggregate Of Information ### Timeline - 2015: The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection set up a working group on the handling of criminal content in social networks. - June 30, 2017: The German parliament passed the Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, NetzDG). - October 1, 2017: The NetzDG law came into force in Germany. - January 1, 2018: Social media networks with 2 million or more registered users in Germany were required to comply with the NetzDG law. - January 1, 2021: The NetzDG law was amended to increase the information content and comparability of social media providers' transparency reports. - June 28, 2021: The Act to Amend the Network Enforcement Act entered into force in Germany, which aims to combat online hate speech and fake news in social networks. - July 2021: The amended NetzDG law obligates covered social media networks to remove content that is "clearly illegal" within 24 hours after receiving a user complaint. - Ongoing: A wider reform of the NetzDG law remains ongoing in parallel, that's intended to bolster user rights and transparency, including by simplifying user notifications and making it easier for people to object to content removals and have successfully appealed content restored, among other tweaks. Broader transparency reporting requirements are also looming for platforms. #### References ##### Wikipedia Summary > The Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, **NetzDG**; German: Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken), also known colloquially as the Facebook Act (*Facebook-Gesetz*), is a German law that was passed in the Bundestag that officially aims to combat fake news, hate speech and misinformation online. The Act obliges social media platforms with over 2 million users to remove "clearly illegal" content within 24 hours and all illegal content within 7 days of it being posted, or face a maximum fine of 50 million Euros. The deleted content must be stored for at least 10 weeks afterward, and platforms must submit transparency reports on dealing with illegal content every six months. It was passed by the Bundestag in June 2017 and took full effect in January 2018. > The law has been criticized both locally and internationally by politicians, human rights groups, journalists and academics for incentivizing social media platforms to pre-emptively censor valid and lawful expression, and making them the arbiter of what constitutes free expression and curtailing freedom of speech in Germany. An evaluation ordered by the German Ministry of Justice and executed by Berkeley and Cambridge scientists came to the conclusion that the law has led to a "significant improvement in complaints management and public accountability of network providers in dealing with designated illegal content" while specifying a range of tasks to be tackled like ascertainments in wording. > [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network%20Enforcement%20Act) %% FOOTER %% ---  --- ## Keep Digging %%Space%% ### Tags ### Footnotes & References