Ministers in Germany have approved plans to fine social media firms up to 50 million euros if they fail to remove hate speech and fake news in a timely manner. The proposed law says that companies must block obviously criminal content within 24 hours of it being reported, and within seven days for other offensive material. A spokesperson for Facebook, which claims to already works very hard to remove such content, said the company was concerned that the law "would force private companies rather than the courts to become the judges of what is illegal in Germany."