A German satirist who claims Twitter is failing to delete hate speech has captured the social media giant's attention offline - by stencilling the offending messages outside its Hamburg office. The Jewish man, Shahak Shapira, claimed that Twitter had just responded to just nine of his 300 complaints in six months, the BBC reported on Wednesday.
I reported about 300 hate tweets. Twitter didn't delete 'em, so I sprayed them in front of their office #HEYTWITTER https://t.co/wPqiwaxd7J— Shahak Shapira (@ShahakShapira) August 7, 2017
A YouTube video has emerged showing the man stencilling 30 tweets which include statements that are homophobic, xenophobic and involve holocaust denial. "If Twitter forces me to see these things, then they'll have to see them too," said Shapira in the video titled "#HeyTwitter". The nine responses he got from Twitter said the tweets did not violate the site's rules, the report added.
He described the comments as "not just plain insults or jokes, but absolutely serious threats of violence". "Germany needs a final solution to Islam," read one of the tweets. "Let's gas the Jews," says another, in reference to the Nazis' murder of six million Jews during World War Two.
Shapira applauded Facebook which, in contrast, removed 80 per cent of the comments he had reported during the same six-month period. Hate speech is an especially sensitive subject in Germany due to the crimes committed by the Nazi regime in the Second World War, the BBC reported.
In June, the country passed a law which could force social media companies to delete racist or slanderous posts within 24 hours or face a fine of up to 50 million euros ($58 million).
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