On April 4, 2023, Germany's Federal Office of Justice ("BfJ") initiated proceedings against Twitter International Unlimited Company ("Twitter") on allegations of "systemic failure" to deal with illegal content as prescribed under Germany's Network Enforcement Act ("NetzDG").

Unlawful content is defined by Section 1(3) of the NetzDG as content that breaches specific provisions of the Criminal Code (StGB), such as the rules on slander in Article 185 of the StGB and certain criminal law provisions on protection from threats to the democratic rule of law.

Section 3(2) of the NetzDG provides that in case of any compliant, the provider of a social network shall either:

  1. in case the content is 'manifestly unlawful', remove/ block access to the content within 24 (twenty four) hours of the social network provider receiving such compliant; or
  2. remove/ block access to unlawful content immediately, i.e. generally within 7 (seven) days of receiving the complaint

Section 1(1) of NetzDG provides that the aforementioned provisions shall be applicable to telemedia service providers that operate social networks for profit-making purposes, like Twitter.

Recently various complaints were filed with Twitter in Germany regarding content published on Twitter, which the BfJ feels was either unlawful or even manifestly unlawful. However, no action was taken by the tech giant in relation to the same, as required under Section 3(2) of the NetzDG.

Section 4 of the NetzDG provides that a failure to company with section 3 of the NetzDG would constitute a regulatory offence and a fine of up to fifty million euros may be imposed. Although no such fine has been levied yet, if the BfJ comes "to the conclusion that the accusation of illegal behavior is still justified, the BfJ will apply to the Bonn district court to initiate preliminary ruling proceedings and at the same time present the provider's statement."

Although the reason for non-removal of the content is still unknown, it may be borne in mind that discussions on the commercial and ethical implications of mass firing of employees of Twitter were making the rounds around the same time. The regulatory requirements of every country differs from other countries. With tech companies growing at an exponential rate, they focus on standardizing processes and decisions globally, which may affect their ability to factor in variations in regulatory approaches between different countries.

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