Network Enforcement Act

[4] An evaluation ordered by the German Ministry of Justice and executed by Berkeley and Cambridge scientists came to the conclusion that the law has led to a "significant improvement in complaints management and public accountability of network providers in dealing with designated illegal content" while specifying a range of tasks to be tackled like ascertainments in wording.

[6] The draft law referred to commercial social networks on the Internet with at least 2 million members, not to journalistically- and editorially-designed services (§ 1 NetzDG).

[6] According to the Federal government of Germany, the law is necessary to combat an increasing spread of hate speech online, as well as defamation and fake news.

It added that the law will set a dangerous precedent for other governments that also wishes to restrict online speech by forcing companies to censor on its behalf.

[13] Harald Martenstein of the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel called it "Erdoğanism in pure culture" and explained that the draft law reads as if "it came from the 1984 novel" that it was an "attack on the principle of the separation of powers".

[14] Academics and experts also expect the short and rigid deletion periods and the high threat of fines to lead the networks to prefer to remove contributions in case of doubt, even if the freedom of expression guaranteed by fundamental rights would require a context-related consideration, such as in the differentiation between prohibited insult and permitted satire.

[15] In April 2017, an alliance of business associations, network politicians, civil rights activists, scientists and lawyers joined forces to protest against the law.

[16][17][18] In June 2017, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Protection of Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, criticised the planned regulations in a statement to the federal government.

This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

[20][23] In 2018, the advocacy group Counter Extremism Project published a joint report with the think tank Centre for European Policy Studies analysing the effects of the Network Enforcement Act.

The authors concluded it "remains uncertain whether NetzDG has achieved significant results in reaching its stated goal of preventing hate speech" as some platforms did not strictly comply with the requirements.

An inquiry by the German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche was rejected on the grounds that "the publication of the documents... would affect the climate of mutual trust between the member state (Germany) and the Commission".

[26][27] In July 2019, Facebook was fined 2 million Euros by Germany's Federal Office of Justice for under-reporting complaints about illegal content.