Austria's New Hate Speech Law
by Judith Bergman • November 14, 2020 at 5:00 am
Austria's proposed law is modelled on Germany's much criticized NetzDG law, also known as the censorship law, which came into effect in January 2018 and requires social media companies to delete or block any online unlawful content within 24 hours or 7 days at the most, or face fines of up to 50 million euros.
If the proposed law is passed, the freedom of speech of Austrians online will be subject to the arbitrary decisions of corporate entities, such as Twitter, Goggle and Facebook.
With Austria's draft online hate speech law, yet another European country is taking another step towards making online censorship an institutionalized feature of European hate speech laws.
"We too often make bad laws with good intentions. Online platforms should not censor the freedom of expression," said Chairman of the Senate Law Commission Philippe Bas after the decision of France's Constitutional Council. It can only be hoped that European lawmakers eager to censor free speech online will heed the ruling of the French constitutional court.
The Austrian government has presented a draft online hate speech law, the Communication Platforms Act, which, if passed, will limit free speech in the country. The Austrian government writes in the introduction to its proposed law:
