Nearly a year after the entry into force of the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG), far fewer Internet users have complained about the lack of deletions than expected. By the end of November, the Federal Office of Justice (BfJ) had only received 704 reports via the online form, the agency informed the "Handelsblatt". According to a spokesman for the Federal Office, the legislator had assumed around 25,000 reports and 500 fine proceedings each year.
The Network Enforcement Act applies in full since 1 January. It sets the operators of large social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter certain deletion periods for obvious criminal content such as sedition. They should be deleted within 24 hours, in more difficult cases this should happen within seven days.
Anyone who repeatedly and systematically fails to meet this demand faces fines of millions. The pressure on Internet companies should lead to faster help for those who feel threatened or offended.
"Overblocking in the mind"?
FDP and Greens consider the figures of the Federal Office for little meaningful. The FDP digital politician Manuel Höferlin told the newspaper: "The low number of complaints could also indicate that the users censor themselves, so the law would thus lead to an over-blocking in the mind."
Even for the Green Party Vice Konstantin von Notz the findings of the Federal Office is not good as an indicator of the functioning of the law. "Rather, the numbers show that even the implementation of the reporting channels is still capable of improvement until today, also here you should urgently readjust and make clearer targets." He also criticized the fact that there is still no arbitration board for cases in which users believe that their own content was wrongfully blocked on the basis of the NetzDG.
SPD net politician Saskia Esken (SPD) said the small number of complaints as evidence of the effectiveness of the law, because "the companies have built structures to deal with references to potentially criminal content regularly and responsibly".
Justice ministers want to tighten NetzG
At the end of July, the network operators had submitted their first figures on the NetzDG, they have to do this every six months. Thus, many user complaints about content allegedly unlawful are rejected. Facebook had received surprisingly few complaints.
Even then, it was unclear to what extent the numbers are due to a lack of legal knowledge of users, poorly located complaint forms or a decline in illegal content.
Most recently, the Ministers of Justice of the Länder had called for tightening the NetzG and making the network operators even stricter. However, the Federal Government did not plan to evaluate the law until 2020.