Online Hate speech

Social media firms to face huge hate speech fines in Germany

The proposed law would give the companies 24 hours to block obviously criminal content after it had been reported, and seven days for other offensive material.

However, a plan to state explicitly that penalties could be imposed after a single infraction has been dropped.

Facebook has voiced concern.

"We work very hard to remove illegal content from our platform and are determined to work with others to solve this problem," a spokeswoman told the BBC.