A German “Citizens Council” has submitted recommendations to the Ministry of the Interior calling for the potential criminalisation of “disinformation” (Daily Sceptic).
The project known as “Forum Against Fakes”, included both a “council” of 120 German citizens and an online survey. The “Citizens Report” was handed over to Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser on September 12th. It includes a recommendation titled “Consideration of criminal prosecution and/or penalising of the dissemination of disinformation”.
The text (p.37) says:
“The German Government should consider whether criminal prosecution or other types of penalties are possible based on the definition of disinformation.”
The “justification” of the proposed measure continues:
“Preserving freedom of speech is important to us. Nevertheless, the creation and dissemination of disinformation has to be deterred and the perpetrators’ sense of wrongdoing heightened.”
“The “Citizens Council” also recommended supplementing the EU’s Digital Services Act, the centrepiece of the EU’s efforts to suppress ‘disinformation’, with a new law requiring “Very Large Online Platforms” (VLOPs) to use 1% of their global turnover to combat disinformation. For context, Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Amazon and Wikipedia have all been designated as VLOPs by the European Commission.”
The relevant text (p.32) reads:
“[Online platforms] must use 50% of this budget to ensure that, once a month, every user is shown a post explaining disinformation, which works like a timed ad.”
“The remaining 50% of the budget is to be contributed to an “independent agency for financing campaigns against disinformation”, which is discussed elsewhere in the document.”
Moreover, the relevant section proposes the formulation of “minimum legal requirements” which “oblige the platforms to programme their algorithms in such a way that possible disinformation is not disseminated and not recommended to users”.
The council was assembled by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany’s most influential public policy think-tank, in partnership with the Ministry of the Interior. It was tasked with formulating recommendations on how best to reduce “disinformation”.
The Bertelsmann Foundation is itself affiliated with the privately owned German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Under the ownership structure created by the late Reinhard Mohn, the foundation itself became the majority owner of the corporation. Penguin-Random House, the largest book publisher in the English-speaking world, is a fully-owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann.
Worth reading in full.
