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In a report published on 15 September 2020, the Wissenschaftliche Dienst (research office) of the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament) noted that parts of the new law on combating right-wing extremism and hate crime were unconstitutional. The report raises concerns about the constitutionality of the law’s provisions on obligations to hand over deleted content and IP addresses to German prosecution authorities. It comes after the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) recently declared current rules on the disclosure of inventory data unconstitutional. The...

On 27 August 2020, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court – BGH), the highest German civil court, decided that the operator of a social network must provide a deceased user’s heir with access to the user’s account. The heir must be allowed to access the account and its content in the same way as the original account holder. However, they may not actively use the account. The case concerned a ruling of the Landgericht Berlin (Berlin regional court) of 17 December 2015, which had previously been confirmed by the BGH (judgment of 12 July 2018 – III ZR 183/17 –...

In August 2020, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media – KJM) of the German Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) updated its broadcasting and telemedia supervision criteria. New criteria were added to take account of new Internet trends, such as influencer marketing, and the dangers of online gaming addiction. The KJM is an organ of the Landesmedienanstalten. Germany’s federal structure, in which 14 state media authorities operate in the 16 Bundesländer (federal states), means that a joint body is needed...

On 1 October 2020, the German Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) published a report on the different forms of disinformation and its distribution from both communication-related and legal perspectives. The report defines various types of disinformation, categorises them from a legal point of view and describes measures that can be taken to combat them. The report describes the seven main forms of disinformation or misinformation and the threats they each pose to society and democracy. They include deliberate decontextualisation of real information; deliberate misinformation; manipulative...

On 30 September 2020, the Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media – KJM) ruled that youth protection rules had been breached on the Twitter platform. Unable to prosecute the account holders concerned on account of their anonymity, the KJM held Twitter itself responsible. In six separate cases, the KJM found that Twitter users had breached the German Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag (Inter-State Treaty on the protection of minors in the media – JMStV) by making pornographic content publicly accessible. Since the service providers...