BERLIN — German authorities say they have issued Facebook with a 2 million-euro (US$2.3 million) fine under a law designed to combat hate speech.
The Federal Office for Justice said Tuesday that the social networking company had failed to meet transparency requirements for its handling of hate speech complaints.
The agency said Facebook’s report for the first half of 2018 didn’t reflect the actual number of complaints about suspected illegal content, which in Germany includes anti-Semitic insults and material designed to incite hatred against persons or groups based on their religion or ethnicity.
It said there was also incomplete information about the language skills and training of staff tasked with processing hate speech complaints.
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Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling, which it can appeal.
Newly appointed Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said the option for making a complaint under the transparency law was harder to find on Facebook than an option for complaining that a post violated the platform’s community standards.
“It is quite clear that Facebook’s community standards do not correspond to the standards of the law,” she told reporters at Frankfurt Airport.
Tallying only reports made under the harder-to-find complaints procedure led to artificially low numbers.
In 2018, Facebook said it had received 1,048 complaints relating to illegal content on its platform over the second half of that year, according to its transparency report.
— With files from Reuters
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