Mark Zuckerberg confronts 'hate speech' in Germany and at Facebook
Found on CS Monitor on Saturday, 27 February 2016
In response to the refugee crisis in Europe, and the resulting anti-migrant Facebook postings by neo-Nazi sympathizers, the social media platform hired 200 German employees to monitor the site.
In September, Facebook announced that it would work with the German Justice Ministry to crack down on anti-migrant posts. Under German law, social media users who incite hatred or violence against an ethnic or religious group can be punished by up to three years in jail.
A long time ago, there was the impression that a working and healthy democracy can handle a level of racism and intolerance just fine; after all, it is an opinion and not everybody thinks the same way. It's depressing to see that a nation which calls itself free and welcoming decides to resort to censorship, banning and suppressing those who are not in line with the offical way of thinking; and that won't make those opinions go away magically. Where is it supposed to end? Will Zucky turn over critics who insult the king in Malaysia? After all, that is illegal there.