Mark Zuckerberg and several other senior Facebook staff are facing charges of abetting crimes like Holocaust denial. German authorities believe the social media giant is not doing enough to censor the offensive posts.
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A Munich court has opened a lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, German media reported on Friday. News outlet "der Spiegel" wrote on its website, before the main weekly magazine's Saturday release, that it had obtained court documents charging the social media mogul with incitement to hatred.
Zuckerberg is reportedly being charged alongside Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, chief Europe lobbyist Richard Allan and his Berlin counterpart Eva-Maria Kirschsieper.
According to Spiegel, the complaint comes from the Würzburg-based attorney Chan-jo Jun. In the suit, he accuses Facebook of tolerating appeals for murder, threats of violence, and Holocaust denial, among other things.
Laws regulating hate speech in Germany are extremely tight, with most Nazi symbolism and racist propaganda strictly forbidden, a legacy of Germany's role in World War II. Although Facebook is obliged to remove illegal content from its site, it has repeatedly garnered hefty criticism for the time it takes to do so.
Germany cracks down on online hate
Justice Minister Heiko Maas has made hate speech on social media something of a pet project, threatening Twitter and Facebook specifically with being "too slow" in removing offending posts. Maas has pushed a new initiative in Brussels to create EU-wide laws that would hand out stricter penalties for racist or xenophobic content.
Spreading racist ideology can come at a hefty price in Germany. Last month, a man in Würzburg became the latest to see jail time over an online post advocating racial hatred. The posts in question advocated violence against Jews, foreigners, and refugees. Although the defendant expressed remorse, he was handed a prison sentence of two months and three years.
Facebook has often said it stands unequivocally against hate speech, and would work in the future to ensure a swifter removal of related posts.