Hate speech and fake news – how two concepts got  intertwined and politicised  Kirsten Gollatz & Leontine Jenner    On 1 October 2017, the so-called Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz,                    or NetzDG) came into force with a transitional regulation. The law applies to operators of                              social media platforms and their handling of the phenomena of hate speech and fake news.                              As the jury for the Anglicism of the Year 2016 award wrote, these two terms served as a                                    “crystallisation point for societal debates on how to deal with this phenomenon, which is                            not entirely new but has entered the public consciousness with force.” We ask: how did it                                come about that the debates around these terms actually led to a law in Germany?    To answer this question, we will first reconstruct the trajectories of the two discussions                            in the media. The debates on hate speech and fake news are first considered                            separately from each other; then, we examine how they came into contact with one                            another. We will subsequently turn our attention to the increasing politicisation of the                          discussions, which culminated at the end of the year in a convoluted discourse on the                              regulation of two very different phenomena. Our accounts here are based on an                          analysis of more than 900 articles published in the German-language media in 2016.   TRAJECTORY OF THE HATE SPEECH DISCUSSION IN 2016   At the beginning of 2016, Facebook itself shaped the media agenda by announcing                          several measures to combat hate speech, with a focus on Germany. At the end of May,                                the question of how to deal with hate speech also became an issue for European                              institutions. The European Commission reached an agreement with Facebook, Google,                    Microsoft and Twitter on a code of conduct on hate comments. In Germany, a local                              case of right-wing agitation against Green Party MEP Stefanie von Berg once again put                            the topic on the media agenda. Hamburg’s senator of justice, Till Steffen (Green Party),                            then pushed the discussion about a possible tightening of the law on hate crimes. Over                              the summer of 2016, the media interest was fuelled by a larger discussion broadening                            the scope of the issues to society as a whole. In these months, various actors initiated                                public campaigns against hate speech, and projects to observe hate speech on the                          internet were set in motion. The first figures and statistics based on scientific research                            were published. The wider public interest strengthened the drive to political action.  The enormous increase in reporting in November and December was primarily the                        result of the superimposition of another discourse onto this debate. The US                        presidential election and the question of how fake news on social media had                          influenced it reactivated the debate on online hate comments at the end of 2016 as                              just another category of unwanted content on the internet. As an overview, the                          following graph shows the trends on the hate speech discussion in 2016.     TRAJECTORY OF THE FAKE NEWS DISCUSSION IN 2016   At the beginning of 2016, reports of defamatory, false stories about refugees increased.                          Our analysis shows, however, that these false reports were not yet the focus of a                              separate discourse; instead, the lines of conflict were based more on positions in the                            refugee debate.  We again note an increased focus on false reports during the shooting spree in Munich                              on 22 July 2016. The term ​Falschmeldung ​(literally false report) used in this context                            primarily referred to rumours that were spread as purported facts during the chaos.                          Nevertheless, the killing spree in Munich marked an important point in the                        development of the fake news discussion in several respects. It was here that key                            subjects and objects of discourse formed: on the one hand, there was social media                            platforms, which is where false reports were primarily spread. On the other hand, there                            were traditional media organisations, which were accused of allowing an information                      vacuum to emerge, thus giving the false reports on Twitter or Facebook more                          opportunity to spread. Calls for state intervention were voiced for the first time with                            reference to the coverage of the killing spree, but considerations remained abstract.  The issue finally came to the public’s attention along with the entry of the English                              term fake news into the German language – this occurred when Facebook was accused                            of aiding President Trump’s election victory. While the debate had previously centred                        on concrete cases of false reports and problematised their dissemination, now                      Facebook’s handling (or non-handling) of fake news was the subject of discussion.                        There were calls for measures that would go beyond a mere voluntary commitment on                            the part of Facebook. In December, the problem was then also applied to the                            forthcoming federal elections in Germany in 2017. As the second visualisation on page                          67 shows, this resulted in yet another rise in reporting.  CONVERGENCE OF TWO DISCUSSIONS INTO ONE DISCOURSE   At the beginning of 2016, both phenomena arose simultaneously but individually in                        certain contexts: for example, there were increasing numbers of false reports against                        refugees that were deliberately being spread to incite hatred. However, in terms of                          terminology, the term that was being used was exclusively false reports with                        defamatory content ​(Falschmeldungen mit diffamierenden Inhalten)​.   By the end of the year, two Anglicisms had established themselves in the German                            language: hate speech and fake news. In this phase, the hate speech discussion almost                            never appears in isolation. The intermingling of the two discussions is particularly                        apparent in December. Of the 49 articles on hate speech published in December, 37                            articles also deal with fake news. The hate speech discussion was increasingly                        subsumed under the new fake news debate.  At the end of 2016, the factor that connected these two, previously separate                          discussions was not that they occurred simultaneously in relation to certain incidents,                        but that both phenomena arose in the same place. Social media platforms, especially                          Facebook, were seen as the breeding ground for fake news and hate speech and were                              increasingly criticised. Two distinct categories of unwanted content had now become                      the subject of the same regulatory efforts. The third visualisation on page 67 depicts                            the convergence of the discussions in 2016.  POLITICISATION OF THE DISCUSSION: A WAY STATION ON THE PATH TO THE LAW   The above explanations mark the way stations on the path to the Network                          Enforcement Act: platforms launched initiatives and made voluntary commitments                  regarding hate comments in early 2016, there was a broader societal discussion of the                            topic during the summer months, an increased focus on the role of digital platforms in                              spreading hate comments and false reports, and finally the election victory of Trump,                          which firmly anchored the English terms fake news and hate speech in the German                            discourse and united the two debates in their criticism of Facebook’s deletion practice.   The politicisation of these two discussions was fuelled in particular by three factors.                          First, politicians (e.g. Renate Künast, Stefanie von Berg) were themselves victims of                        false statements or hate tirades in social networks. Second, the initial measures in the                            fight against hate speech, which were mainly based on platforms’ own initiatives and                          voluntary commitment, were increasingly perceived as ineffective. And third and                    finally, the discourse about hate speech and fake news on social media platforms was                            situated in a relationship with other political issues, in particular the refugees, the                          killing spree in Munich, alleged disinformation campaigns by foreign governments, and                      finally, the federal parliamentary elections in Germany following the US elections.  These factors prompted a shift in the debate towards legislative solutions. At the same                            time, the emerging narrative of fake news as a threat to German democracy in the face                                of the forthcoming elections led to an increased sense of urgency within politics. In                            this context, the new fake news problem was quickly linked to the old hate speech                              issue. A longer discussion, of the kind that emerged on hate speech, in which                            participants first attempted to better understand, define and evaluate the problem, did                        not happen in the case of fake news. Because voluntary measures taken by platform                            operators against hate speech had purportedly led to disappointing results, politicians                      now sought to solve the fake news problem by directly legislating.   WHAT WILL REMAIN THE SAME, WHAT WILL CHANGE?  In the spring of 2017, these developments culminated in a draft law presented by then                              Justice Minister Heiko Maas. In June of the same year, despite harsh criticism, the draft                              was accepted by the Bundestag and finally implemented on 1 October 2017 – albeit in                              watered-down form. Supporters and critics of the law see the actual problem quite                          differently: while proponents see hate speech and fake news as a threat to German                            democracy and the law as a way of defending against this, critics see the law itself as a                                    threat to democratic opinion-formation. These critics fear that platforms may                    proactively delete content on a large scale to avoid fines. In addition, they are                            concerned that the law could be abused by governments. In both cases, there would be                              a threat of censorship and thus a restriction of freedom of expression. While our                            analysis is limited to the year 2016, based on these contradictory positions, we can                            predict that the NetzDG, its controversial norms and legality, and the concrete effects                          of the law will continue to be a subject for debate.               REFERENCES   Anglizismus des Jahres. (2016).​ Retrieved from  http://www.anglizismusdesjahres.de/anglizismen-des- jahres/adj-2016   Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz vom 1. September 2017 ​(BGBl. I S. 3352) ​(Germany).  Retrieved from https:// www.gesetze-im-internet.de/netzdg/BJNR335210017.html    This piece is based on two articles published on 2 and 8 May 2017 on the Science Blog of Alexander von                                          Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG).    Kirsten Gollatz is currently conducting research with a focus on the conditions for exercising freedom of                                expression on the internet and the relevance of private transnational governance, as well as online                              participation. Along this line, Kirsten is interested in how public discourses, for instance on hate speech and                                  fake news on digital platforms in Germany, manifests itself in institutions, new organisational processes or                              practices. Kirsten Gollatz is Project Manager at HIIG working at the interface between the institute’s research                                agenda and a growing international research community. Kirsten also coordinates the institute’s academic                          visitor programs. Since 2014 Kirsten has been writing her doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich. In her                                    thesis she investigates the evolution of transnational governance regimes that private social media companies                            apply to user content on their platforms.    Leontine Jenner is a student assistant for the Internet Policy and Governance research team at HIIG. She is                                    currently studying sociology at the Technical University of Berlin with an emphasis on sociological technology                              studies and computer science as her minor field. Prior to her studies she has worked in the games industry in                                        the field of game design. Leontine is particularly interested in new forms of digitally mediated interaction and                                  qualitative and digital research methods.    This post represents the view of the author and does not necessarily represent the view of the institute itself.                                      For more information about the topics of these articles and associated research projects, please contact                              info@hiig.de​.