https://feeds.thelocal.com/ Read the latest news and views from Germany in English en-us news@thelocal.com (TheLocal) webmaster@thelocal.com (TheLocal) TheLocal RSS Feed Facebook says it has deleted the accounts, pages and groups linked to virus conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers in Germany who are vocal opponents of government restrictions to control the coronavirus pandemic. https://www.thelocal.de/20210917/facebook-deletes-virus-conspiracy-accounts-in-germany Fri, 17 Sep 2021 11:06:50 +0200 facebook-deletes-virus-conspiracy-accounts-in-germany A German regulator on Tuesday slapped a three-month ban on Facebook collecting user data from WhatsApp accounts and referred the case to an EU watchdog, citing concerns about election integrity. https://www.thelocal.de/20210511/germany-halts-facebook-sharing-whatsapp-data Tue, 11 May 2021 17:28:57 +0200 germany-halts-facebook-sharing-whatsapp-data Facebook will roll out its news platform in Germany from May, providing articles from around 100 existing German media outlets, the US-based tech giant said Monday. https://www.thelocal.de/20210301/facebook-news-set-to-launch-in-germany-in-may Mon, 01 Mar 2021 16:49:33 +0100 facebook-news-set-to-launch-in-germany-in-may German residents have been left confused after being targeted by the British government with a Facebook campaign about the corona pandemic, with social media users asking why the money isn’t being spent by the UK government in its own country. https://www.thelocal.de/20201106/why-is-the-uk-spending-money-targeting-covid-advertising-at Fri, 06 Nov 2020 13:13:29 +0100 why-is-the-uk-spending-money-targeting-covid-advertising-at With growing dangers from far-right extremist groups and torrents of threats against politicians, Germany is set to toughen online speech laws and tighten the screws on social networks. https://www.thelocal.de/20200219/germany-to-crack-down-on-online-hate-speech Wed, 19 Feb 2020 09:53:25 +0100 germany-to-crack-down-on-online-hate-speech A German court on Tuesday fined Facebook two million euros for not being transparent enough over the action it is taking to curb online hate speech. https://www.thelocal.de/20190702/german-court-fines-facebook-over-hate-speech-combat-failings Tue, 02 Jul 2019 17:46:16 +0200 german-court-fines-facebook-over-hate-speech-combat-failings Facebook announced on Friday changes to the way political advertisements are handled on the social media site ahead of the upcoming European Parliament elections. https://www.thelocal.de/20190330/facebook-to-deploy-new-transparency-tools-ahead-of-european-elections Sat, 30 Mar 2019 09:47:35 +0100 facebook-to-deploy-new-transparency-tools-ahead-of-european-elections Facebook users should be asked for consent before data collected by the group's subsidiaries Whatsapp and Instagram and on third-party websites is combined with their social network account, Germany's competition authority said Thursday. https://www.thelocal.de/20190207/german-competition-watchdog-to-crack-down-on-facebook-data-gathering Thu, 07 Feb 2019 11:17:40 +0100 german-competition-watchdog-to-crack-down-on-facebook-data-gathering German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced Friday she would close her Facebook account, taking another step in a long farewell from politics in her final term in office. https://www.thelocal.de/20190201/angela-merkel-bids-farewall-to-facebook-as-she-closes-account Fri, 01 Feb 2019 18:34:32 +0100 angela-merkel-bids-farewall-to-facebook-as-she-closes-account France and Germany jointly agreed a scaled-back version of an EU digital tax Tuesday, that they hoped would break significant opposition to the plan amongst bloc partners. https://www.thelocal.de/20181204/germany-teams-up-with-france-in-bid-to-save-eu-digital-tax-proposal Tue, 04 Dec 2018 09:14:44 +0100 germany-teams-up-with-france-in-bid-to-save-eu-digital-tax-proposal German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in an interview for publication Sunday he backed a global minimum fiscal regime for multinationals as Europe looks to levy tax notably on US tech giants. https://www.thelocal.de/20181021/germany-urges-global-minimum-tax-for-digital-giants Sun, 21 Oct 2018 04:29:07 +0200 germany-urges-global-minimum-tax-for-digital-giants EU finance ministers battled Saturday over a controversial proposal to slap a European tax on US tech giants amid rising worries that it is ineffective and protectionist. https://www.thelocal.de/20180908/eu-ministers-battle-over-proposed-tax-on-big-tech-facebook-google Sat, 08 Sep 2018 16:58:20 +0200 eu-ministers-battle-over-proposed-tax-on-big-tech-facebook-google Half a year ago, a controversial new German law came into force with the aim of combating hate speech on social media. On Friday, Youtube and Facebook published first figures on how often it has been used. https://www.thelocal.de/20180727/facebook-and-youtube-publish-figures-on-hate-speech-law Fri, 27 Jul 2018 12:00:43 +0200 facebook-and-youtube-publish-figures-on-hate-speech-law Facebook must grant the parents of a dead girl access as heirs to their daughter's user account, which had been blocked for five and a half years, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Thursday. https://www.thelocal.de/20180712/german-court-to-rule-on-parents-access-to-dead-daughters-facebook Thu, 12 Jul 2018 10:52:14 +0200 german-court-to-rule-on-parents-access-to-dead-daughters-facebook A leading politician from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party warned Monday that Facebook's dominance makes competition "impossible", joining a broadside against the social network from Berlin. https://www.thelocal.de/20180423/people-should-be-able-to-message-from-facebook-to-twitter-like-with-phone-companies-german-mp Mon, 23 Apr 2018 14:42:57 +0200 people-should-be-able-to-message-from-facebook-to-twitter-like-with-phone-companies-german-mp Germany's justice minister Katarina Barley called for better regulation of social networks in light of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. https://www.thelocal.de/20180405/justice-minister-barley-launches-attack-on-facebook Thu, 05 Apr 2018 16:11:58 +0200 justice-minister-barley-launches-attack-on-facebook Facebook on Wednesday admitted that up to 87 million people could have been affected by the unauthorized leak of data to Cambridge Analytica, with 310,000 Germans potentially hit. https://www.thelocal.de/20180405/over-300000-germans-potentially-hit-by-facebook-data-leak Thu, 05 Apr 2018 11:06:39 +0200 over-300000-germans-potentially-hit-by-facebook-data-leak Germany's justice minister on Monday said Facebook should face "stricter" oversight and be more transparent with its users, as the tech giant struggles to contain the fallout from a huge data privacy scandal. https://www.thelocal.de/20180327/justice-minister Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:45:44 +0200 justice-minister Germany is the latest country to demand answers from Facebook after it emerged data from 50 million users was used to inform targeted election campaigns. German Justice Minister Katharina Barley on Thursday called such methods "a danger to democracy." https://www.thelocal.de/20180322/german-justice-minister-demands-meeting-with-facebook-scandal-cambridge-analytica Thu, 22 Mar 2018 13:24:33 +0100 german-justice-minister-demands-meeting-with-facebook-scandal-cambridge-analytica German prosecutors said on Monday they were dropping a case into whether Facebook bosses including Mark Zuckerberg were condoning hate speech online. https://www.thelocal.de/20180227/prosecutors-drop-case-against-facebook Tue, 27 Feb 2018 09:45:51 +0100 prosecutors-drop-case-against-facebook