Mark Zuckerberg investigated by Germany over 'racist' Facebook posts
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and European policy director Richard Allan are under investigation in Germany over Nazi-themed and racist content on the social network.
Mark Zuckerberg
According to reports, the trio have been accused of failing to ensure posts on Facebook containing racist abuse, threats of violence and Holocaust denial are removed.
Chan-jo Jun, a Bavarian lawyer, alleges that “Facebook turned a blind eye” to some 430 offensive posts that were reported to the company but never deleted.
Under German law, Facebook is legally obliged to remove racist or Nazi-themed content. As such, prosecutors in Munich are believed to have opened a preliminary investigation to determine if there is enough evidence of a criminal offence.
Facebook, meanwhile, says the allegations "lack merit.”
“We are not commenting on the status of a possible investigation but we can say that the allegations lack merit and there has been no violation of German law by Facebook or its employees,” a spokesperson said.
"There is no place for hate on Facebook. We work closely with partners to fight hate speech and foster counter speech.”
Racism on the platform has been a contentious issue in Germany. Last month, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany party called for companies to be fined 50,000 euros for every offensive post they failed to take down.
Facebook has been trying to show that it can manage such content, hiring a third-party company earlier this year to monitor and delete posts it deems inacceptable.