Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Welcome to 2018, the Year of Censored Social Media

The limitations of selective censorship and the need for better regulation will soon be apparent.

January 3, 2018 at 7:00 AM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

All thumbs.
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

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This year, don't count on the social networks to provide its core service: an uncensored platform for every imaginable view. The censorship has already begun, and it'll only get heavier.

A 2017 law in Germany obliging social networks to delete hate speech as soon as it's reported or face massive fines went into effect on Jan. 1 -- and immediately claimed its first "victim."