BERLIN, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Wednesday that the implementation of Germany's new and controversial online hate speech law would be a challenge.
"We want to ensure that opinions which should be heard are not silenced," Dorsey told German press on the sidelines of the digital conference "dmexco" in Cologne, referring to the measures in question as a "complicated subject."
"I think it will be difficult to implement but we must follow regulations," he added.
In July, the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag) passed a bill which would see network operators, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, face fines of up 50 million euros (59 million U.S. dollars) if they failed to promptly delete content which breached hate speech laws.
Under Germany's prevailing legal framework, hate speech includes the incitement to kill or be violent, threatening speech, abusive language, and sedition.
Network operators are now obliged to offer users a process to lodge complaints about such offenses that is easily recognizable and immediately responsive. They are also required to delete clearly criminal content within 24 hours, or in ambiguous cases, seven days.
According to Dorsey, Twitter, Facebook and Google were collaborating in the fight against hate speech.
The hate speech bill caused heavy controversy in the run up to its passing, however, with a diverse range of social media operators and civil rights and interest groups warning about its purported negative implications. Among others, it drew sharp criticism from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Twitter boasts 330 million monthly users and was founded by Dorsey 11 years ago.
When asked whether he would hesitate to delete the account of Twitter's most prominent user, U.S. President Donald Trump, the CEO said that his network "applied the same rules to any account" whose activity breached its rules of use.
"We welcome every leading politician who uses our service, because it allows the world to hold them accountable," Dorsey added. (1 euro = 1.19 U.S. dollars)
