Eva-Maria Kirschsieper, head of public policy at Facebook Inc., pauses during a conference on combating political hate speech and fake news on social media, in Berlin, Germany, on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2017. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government plans to fine social media networks such as Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. if they fail to combat hate speech, as German officials accuse media companies of being too slow to take action. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg
Facebook Inc defended itself against criticism in Germany that it’s not doing enough to combat hate speech and fake news, telling Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party lawmakers that ridding its platform of such content is highly complex.
The social media giant takes its responsibility to fight hate speech and fake news “very seriously,” but countermeasures shouldn’t be applied with a broad brush, because that might have an undesirable impact on free speech, said Eva-Maria Kirschsieper, Facebook’s chief lobbyist in Germany, at a conference Wednesday organised by Merkel’s Christian Democrat-led caucus in Berlin.
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