The Viennese bomber had also radicalized itself on the Internet. The government is now declaring war on online giants, Integration and Media Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) presented a corresponding law. According to the minister, if terror content is not removed in time after a report, there is a threat of “severe” penalties.
Murder fantasies, hate speeches, bomb-making instructions – everything can be found in the dark corners of the web. Platforms and online forums are increasingly being misused by extremists to spread their deadly propaganda.
On Wednesday after the Council of Ministers, the Minister for Integration presented new measures against hate with a mouse click. “The Internet is now the central breeding ground for radicalization,” says Raab. In concrete terms, this concerns the national implementation of an EU regulation. As a first step in the future, texts, recordings or videos should be reported that recruit members for terrorist groups or incite attacks or criminal offences.
The information is then sent to the responsible media authority, KommAustria, which has 72 hours to verify. If the suspicion is confirmed, the platforms operating in the Union – such as Meta, formerly Facebook, social media giant Twitter or the “conspiratorial channel” Telegram – will have to remove or block this content by order. They have one hour to do this.
The planned penalties are huge under the new law – for systematic violations of up to four percent of global annual sales! By comparison, in Europe alone, Facebook parent Meta’s third-quarter revenue was just $5.79 billion. . .
Source: Krone
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