Holger Münch, president of Germany’s Federal Court Police (BKA), has called for tougher measures from online platforms and prosecutors to tackle online hate crimes.
In an interview with the news agency Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND), he said: “We see that polarization continues to increase and that there are more and more criminal acts from the left.”
While politicians on the left of the political spectrum and the Greens were the most frequent targets of attacks, attacks on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party came in second, he said.
According to Münch, politicians at local level have not filed charges against the online attacks.
This happened in only 11% of all cases. “That is far too few. Apparently there is a lack of trust,” he said.
“Therefore, we must send a signal that law enforcement agencies are capable of consistently prosecuting such violations,” he said.
Münch said he sees problematic content on social media as a contributing factor to radicalization.
“There are clearly recognisable risks for society here and that is why appropriate obligations must be introduced for social media so that providers themselves detect, report and remove criminal content,” said the alderman.
He warned that if people only received one-sided information, social media could become a “radicalization machine.”
Münch called the results so far of the European Union’s Digital Services Act, which requires providers to report criminal content, disastrous.
The BKA had received only 61 reports in a year. He added: “And we cannot enforce different behavior, because there is no system for fines.”
