German official asks Facebook to crack down on hate speech

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere  visited Facebook’s offices in Berlin on Aug. 29 and said that it should do more to keep forbidden content from the social-network platform.

“Facebook should take down racist content or calls for violence from its pages on its own initiative even if it hasn’t yet received a complaint,” Thomas de Maiziere said.

“Facebook has an immensely important economic position and just like every other large enterprise it has a immensely important social responsibility.”

The German government has been critical of Facebook in the past, with political leaders and regulators complaining that it has been too  slow to respond to hate speech and anti-immigrant messages.

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Number of Mideast migrants into Germany falls sharply

refugees

Syrian migrants passing through Slovenia on their way to Germany last year.

The German Interior Ministry reports that the number of migrants seeking asylum in Germany from the ravages of violence, corrupt and brutal dictatorships and poverty in the Muslim world fell sharply in 2016’s first half.

About 16,000 people registered as asylum seekers in Germany in June,  way down from 92,000 in January, but the migrant crisis is expected to continue.

“I wouldn’t hold my breath that this {the migrant slowdown} will remain so in the coming months,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters.

Officials cited border closings in the Balkans, a European Union-Turkey deal to try to block  arrivals by sea from  Islamic nations in Greece and tougher asylum rules in Germany were among the main reasons.

Germany took in more than a million migrants in 2015, mainly people fleeing Islamic terrorism and other conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and the endemic poverty — much of it related to corrupt and brutal regimes and  relentless Islamic violence.

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