Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Capitol Hill riots prompt Germany to revisit online hate speech law
When angry Donald Trump supporters turned violent this week, many said it had been triggered mainly by social media hate speech. This has led to fresh calls for more restrictions in Germany too.
Numerous social networks were quick to impose bans on the US president from using their platforms, as his posts were seen to have instigated the violence. For many critics, these restrictions came four years too late.
"I wasn’t surprised [by what happened at Capitol Hill]," German Social Democrat MP Helge Lindh told DW.
"If you constantly lead a debate against democracy, if you constantly have negative speech, hate speech, against the established mechanism of democracy, people will one day think that this kind of democracy is not acceptable, they lose confidence in democracy, and that’s why they react. It’s a stimulus. If you permanently speak in a negative sense about the institutions of democracy one day they will attack these institutions… and they will do it literally."
Lindh believes Germany is also "not doing enough" to rein in hate speech online. He has been at the receiving end of online abuse culminating in threats of physical attacks.
Safeguarding the constitution
In Germany, the law to
combat hate speech online was considered to be one of the most important proposals of the current legislature, following racist and anti-semitic attacks in 2019 and 2020.
In June 2020, the Bundestag approved the legislation that would ensure prosecution for those perpetrating hate or provoking it, online.
According to the draft legislation, social networks would be obliged to hand over the data of users who post threats or incite hatred, to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).
"We must dry up the breeding ground where this extremism flourishes," Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said at the time.
But data protection and privacy provisions in Germany's Basic Law led to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s reluctance to sign off on the legislation.
The law, which had already been passed by Germany's two parliamentary chambers, was stopped in its tracks because of guidelines issued by the Constitutional Court. At the time, Steinmeier urged for the necessary changes to be "drafted and introduced as soon as possible."
At the heart of the dispute was a requirement for social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to report hate comments to police, who would then be able to access the data, such as the IP address, of the author. Watch video 05:25 Share Social media: Fake news and propaganda? Send Facebook Twitterreddit EMail Facebook Messenger WebWhatsapp Web Telegram linked in Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/3fV60Social media: Fake news and propaganda?
Fresh momentum
Revisions to the legislation are to be debated by the Bundestag in a first reading next week and could be passed at the end of the month to allow Germany's upper house, the Bundesrat, to pass it in early February.
"The attack on Capitol Hill shows us again how powerful social media networks are," CDU parliamentarian Thorsten Frei told the Rheinische Post newspaper. Therefore it was a matter of urgency to enable police to investigate all channels and identify perpetrators.
Online hate speech should have no place in any democracy, warns Helge Lindh. "It's not, as the right-wing populists believe, an expression of democracy, it’s the opposite. It’s against minorities, it’s racist, it’s driven by prejudice. This is the main issue."
What happened in the US capital reminded Lindh of recent events in Berlin: First, farright protesters stormed up the steps of the Reichstag building in August, following a demonstration against anticoronavirus measures. Then the Bundestag was penetrated by a handful of far-right extremists in November while parliamentarians were discussing the new Infection Protection Law, expanding government powers in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
"We had a little 'Washington' in Berlin," Lindh remembers "Some protesters, some extremist people, who had been invited in by the AfD, this rightwing party, came to the Bundestag. That was basically an appetizer for events to come."
shouted from behind the cameras. The 51-year-old says he's glad that local governments are now playing a bigger part in getting people immunized. "It's important to be part of this unprecedented moment in history. I, as mayor of Poissy with its 40,000 inhabitants, want to show that we can really help in the fight against this global pandemic," he told DW. Olive added that there would soon be 10 such vaccination centers in Yvelines and 300 across the country.
"This will allow us to inoculate up to 500 people per day here and very quickly the entire French population across the country," he said.
'The laughing stock of the world'
Speeding up France's vaccination campaign seems crucial. The country has so far only inoculated tens of thousands of people — compared to hundreds of thousand in some other European countries.
Michael Rochoy, a GP in the northern town of Outreau, thinks that's down to logistical and administrative reasons. He has signed an op-ed, together with about 30 other physicians, calling on the government to declare the vaccination campaign a "Grand National Cause." "We have become the laughing stock of the world," he told DW. "How is it possible that things are going that slowly in a country that has such a formidable nationwide health system?"
He thinks the government has chosen the wrong people to run the campaign. "The physician Alain Fischer has been appointed the government's chief vaccination strategist. But he says of himself that he has no clue of logistics — and yet, this is mainly a logistical job," Rochoy fumed.
"What's more, we have to get extra consent from each patient and are supposed to enter information into a new online platform that only started working days after the kick-off of the vaccination campaign — all this has been slowing things down even further," he added.
'There is no problem'
But the government denies France is lagging behind. "There is no problem," Jacques Marilossian, lawmaker for government party LREM in the department of Hauts-de-Seine near Paris, told DW. Then, he compared the situation to a football game: "You wouldn't judge its result after five or six seconds although the game goes on for 90 minutes, would you?"
Marilossian explained that France had been struggling to get hold of ultra-cold freezers. These are required to store the vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech, the only one so far available, which needs to be kept at minus 79 degrees Celsius (minus 100.2 degrees Fahrenheit).
But the lawmaker promised the vaccination campaign would soon accelerate.
"We are bringing forward the vaccination of certain groups, such as medical personnel. And we'll soon receive vaccines that won't need to be stored at these extremely low temperatures. We prefer to take our time initially and proceed with caution to eventually reach the same result as othercountries," he said. France's highest health authority Friday authorized a second COVID-19 vaccine by Moderna that can be stored at minus 20 degrees.
Logistics not the only obstacle
But even if the country catches up with other European countries, there is another problem. France is the world's most vaccine-skeptical country, according to a 2018 poll by Gallup's Wellcome Trust in 144 countries. Only four out of 10 people are planning to get a COVID-19 jab.
One reason for that is that only about 40% of the French trust their government to handle this crisis, according to recent polls. Mayor Olive wants to do his bit to boost that figure. He and 300 other mayors have written an open letter pledging that mayors should get publicly vaccinated. "I think such symbolic actions are important — they can help convince people that getting immunized is a good idea," he pleaded.
However, the very slow start to the vaccination campaign is unlikely to help restore people's confidence. .