Home > 1.3.1.1.2 Accessibility to the media by participants in the election > Report on Electoral Law and Electoral Administration in Europe
 
 
 
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Paragraph 184
 

At the national level, several states have recently adopted legislation to regulate online content. In Germany, for instance, the “Network Enforcement Act” (in effect since 2018) obliges internet intermediaries (such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube) to remove following complaint any illegal content designated as such in the criminal code (including insult and defamatory offences and sedition). While the German law is not specific to electoral campaigns and is restricted to criminal offences committed online, the French parliament, for instance, adopted a law to combat manipulation of information during electoral periods, which aims to identify and stop deliberate allegations of a false or misleading fact on an online platform in the three-month period before an election (CDL-AD(2019)16, paras 99-100).