Big fines for hate speech

– Germany’s parliament voted yesterday to punish social media giants with fines of up to €50 million (about R743 million) if they fail to remove illegal hate speech.

Berlin took the measure, one of the toughest in the world, after a surge in racist and incendiary speech online, particularly since the arrival of around 1 million asylum-seekers since 2015.

Under German law, Holocaust denial, incitement of hatred and racist and anti-Semitic speech are all illegal. – AFP