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Theresa May will tell the likes of Google and Facebook they must remove terror content within two hours or face potential hefty fines.

By Mark Scott and Laurens Cerulus

| 9/20/17, 12:51 PM CET | Updated 9/20/17, 12:52 PM CET

Europe can’t make up its mind about policing terrorist propaganda and hate speech online.

That divide will again be on display Wednesday when British Prime Minister Theresa May will tell the United Nations that the likes of Google and Facebook must remove terror content within two hours or face potential hefty fines. Not to be outdone, new laws in Germany will take effect in early October that may dole out financial penalties of up to €50 million if tech giants fail to take down hate speech from their digital platforms. While some of Europe’s largest countries are pushing ahead with new legislation and possible fines to clamp down on such illegal online material, other EU member countries, as well as the European Commission, have yet to be convinced. Many countries, particularly those from the former Soviet bloc, are concerned that this aggressive policing of what can, and cannot, be posted online may restrict people’s freedom of expression, even if such material borders on either terrorist propaganda or hate speech directed at vulnerable groups like refugees. EU policymakers also have so far restrained from crafting legislation that mirrors domestic efforts from the British or German governments, among others, instead relying on voluntary codes to nudge companies like Twitter to do more to remove illegal content from their social networks. This muddled approach, experts warn, raises questions about how the EU is approaching the growing amount of illegal material online when it already has pushed ahead of other countries, notably the United States, in policing the digital world. By potentially forcing tech companies to decide what can be published online, others fear Europe is moving toward outsourcing decisions over freedom of expression to private companies often headquartered outside of the EU. “Until Europe has a consistent position on these things it is really hard to lecture others on this,” said David Kaye, U.N. special rapporteur on the protection of freedom of expression. “The fundamental problem is this imposition of liability on the companies for their own policing of expression.” In response, tech companies say they have removed hundreds of thousands of accounts from their platforms that shared illegal material and invested in new technologies and manpower to combat illegal content whenever they are made aware of it by users online. The digital giants also continue working with governments, including a new voluntary global initiative announced Wednesday aimed at combating jihadist material online. “Combatting terrorism requires responses from government, civil society and the private sector,” said a spokesperson for the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, the newly created body that includes EU countries and the likes of Brazil and Indonesia. “We are committed to doing everything in our power to ensure that our platforms are not used to distribute terrorist content.” These efforts, though, are unlikely to win over critics in Europe, including some of the region’s most powerful lawmakers.