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Nancy Faeser in Brussels: "This federal government will not accept that"
Photo: OLIVIER HOSLET / EPA
Nancy Faeser announces tougher crackdown on illegal content in the Telegram messenger service.
"We have to act more resolutely against agitation, violence and hatred on the Internet," said the SPD politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Since the spring, the Federal Office of Justice has been pursuing two proceedings against Telegram for violating the Network Enforcement Act, as SPIEGEL reported at the time.
The company is based in Dubai and has so far eluded the German authorities.
Faeser has now referred to this and has confirmed that Telegram has not responded to the letters in the fine proceedings.
"This federal government will not accept that," said Faeser.
The hearing letters in the two fine proceedings were sent to the German embassy at the foreign ministry of the Emirates on May 20.
Faeser said now that messenger services are not covered by the Network Enforcement Act, insofar as they are intended for individual communication. With Telegram you can now write messages in public groups with up to 200,000 members, Faeser has now confirmed the assessment of the Federal Office of Justice. According to Faeser, an unlimited number of people can subscribe to public channels. These open channels would already be subject to the same rules of the Network Enforcement Act as Facebook or Twitter, for example.
"That means that obviously criminal content must be deleted within 24 hours, illegal content within 7 days," said the SPD politician.
In addition, the obligation to report to the Federal Criminal Police Office applies to public channels.
At first it remained unclear how Faeser intends to get Telegram to cooperate with the German state.
hpp / dpa
