In the news

… Nel report, pubblicato dal think tank danese “Justitia” e intitolato non a caso “The Digital Berlin Wall”, i ricercatori Jacob Mchangama e Joelle Fiss hanno dimostrato come il NetzDG tedesco sia stato utilizzato come modello di riferimento per rafforzare e in alcuni casi “giustificare” la censura online in numerosi Paesi autoritari: negli ultimi due anni, Paesi come Venezuela, Vietnam, Russia, Bielorussia, Kenya, Singapore, Malesia, Filippine, Turchia, Mali, Cambogia e Pakistan hanno con più o […]

The Scottish Government’s Hate Crime Bill flouts international human rights law and poses a “dire risk” to freedom of expression”, according to Danish legal experts. Justitia, an international judicial think tank based in Copenhagen, warns that draft ‘stirring up hatred’ offences in Part 2 of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill breach the […]

Inspired by Germany’s notorious hate-speech law, more countries seek to impose steep penalties on platforms that don’t comply with their censorship whims. “”This raises the question of whether Europe’s most influential democracy has contributed to the further erosion of global Internet freedom by developing and legitimizing a prototype of online censorship by proxy that can […]

On October 1, a new law to regulate content posted on social media platforms took effect in Turkey, The Guardian reported. Turkish journalists already face censorship and arrest because of social media posts, CPJ has found, and the law offers just one more tool to censor news. Yet the legislation was not solely conceived in Ankara; it follows the example of one of […]

Late in the evening on June 1, 2019, Walter Lübcke, a local German politician, sat on the terrace outside his house on the outskirts of Kassel when a man crept up on him, aimed a gun at his head and shot him just above his ear. The man, a neo-Nazi, had crossed paths with the […]

Despite their opposing views, both US presidential candidates want to change how social media platforms operate. One system adopted by Germany is increasingly being discussed around the world as an option. The so-called NetzDG law has been emulated in countries including Turkey, Russia and Brazil with more than 20 other governments, including the UK, citing […]

The trend that Justitia pin-pointed, in our 2019 report on how the German NetzDG law has become a reference around the world, is continuing. Brazil is currently in the process of adopting a fake news law copying large parts from the German NetzDG law. Read more on BBC Brazil here. From the article: Tendo sido […]

…But Jacob Mchangama, the executive director of Copenhagen-based think tank Justitia who was consulted by Facebook about its vaccine approach, fears the fallout from mass deletions: “This may have long-term consequences for free speech when this virus is hopefully contained,” he said. Misinformation about other vaccines has rarely met Facebook’s threshold for risking imminent harm. Read the […]

Das 2017 verabschiedete Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (NetzDG) verpflichtet soziale Netzwerke, innerhalb einer Löschfrist von 24 Stunden nach Eingang der Beschwerde „offensichtlich“ rechtswidrige Inhalte zu löschen (§3 Abs. 2 NetzDG), jeden weiteren rechtswidrigen Inhalt binnen 7 Tagen zu löschen (§3 Abs. 3 NetzDG) sowie halbjährlich über die entsprechende Beschwerde- und Entscheidungspraxis zu berichten (§ 2 NetzDG). Bei Nichteinhaltung […]

More and more African countries have laws against online hate speech. In practice, however, these laws often lead to censorship. And a German law may have served as a model. …In any case, Ethiopia is poorly positioned when it comes to internet freedom. The country regularly scores very low in international rankings. The “Freedom on […]