Twitter Faces Fines More Than Its Net Worth In Germany - Know Why

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New Delhi: Twitter's journey through stormy seas continues, as the microblogging service may be subject to tens of billions of euros in fines in Germany for failing to remove tweets that contained hate speech. According to a Techcrunch report, German courts are currently hearing more than 600 cases involving hate speech on Twitter.

Germany earlier this week announced a probe into "suspected systemic failings under the country's hate speech takedowns statute," adding fuel to the fire. ()

According to Techcrunch, the NetzDG statute permits fines of up to 50 million euros per case. After Musk took over Twitter in October and fired personnel in Germany and the US, The New York Times had documented significant spikes in hate speech. ()

Elon Musk informed his staff this week that Twitter, which he paid $44 billion for last year, is now only worth $20 billion. If all 600 German charges against Twitter are successful, the social media giant will be required to pay a fine of 30 billion euros, or roughly $33 billion, or 65 percent more than its current market value.

This might indicate that Twitter will file for bankruptcy. The total amount of fines may possibly reach tens of millions of dollars, even though they are only theoretical at this point.

Germany is initially investigating "only a few tweets out of hundreds that have been recorded and compiled in a database," according to the Techcrunch article. According to the report, a user who had previously been banned but has recently had his account reactivated wrote some of the offensive tweets.

According to Techcrunch, the German government took action after a judicial challenge successfully established that the tweets were unlawful and claimed to have discovered "sufficient evidence of flaws" in Twitter's complaint processing procedures.

This might lead to a social media business receiving its first fine for failing to delete illegal content in accordance with NetzDG.