Musk's impact on content moderation at Twitter faces early test in Germany - techcrunch.com
Natasha Lomas@riptari / 11:06 AM PST•November 21, 2022
A German law requiring social media platforms to promptly respond to reports of hate speech — and in some cases remove illegal speech within 24 hours of it being brought to their attention — looks like it will provide an early test for whether Elon Musk-owned Twitter will face meaningful legal consequences over how recklessly he’s operating the company.
Since the self-proclaimed ‘free speech absolutist’ took over Twitter at the end of October and set to mass sackings and radical policy shifts (including, just this weekend, lifting a permanent suspension on former U.S. President Trump), concern has been riding high among lawmakers and social media users that Twitter could degenerate into a hellscape of low-to-no content moderation under its new staff-liquidating, shitpost-loving billionaire owner.
Thing is, some content moderation laws do apply to Twitter internationally — and Germany has one: The ‘Enforcement on Social Networks’ law, commonly referred to as NetzDG (an abbreviated version of its full German name), allows for fines of up to €50 million for failures to comply with reports to takedown illegal hate speech.
But given Musk’s mass Twitter layoffs — and a number of notable resignations since he took over, including the departure of the former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth — it’s not clear how much core content expertise and moderation resource is left in-house to enable it to comply with various existing regulatory requirements falling on the business in international markets like Germany and India.
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Musk’s impact on content moderation at Twitter faces early test in Germany - techcrunch.com
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