German police question internet users over ‘terror hoaxes’

German police have launched a crackdown on social media

users who deliberately post false or misleading information online.

Since the July 22nd mass shooting in Munich, police in the Bavarian capital say they have launched investigations into 11 cases of messages posted on Twitter and Facebook, suspected of deliberately trying to cause mass panic.

A day after the shootings, Munich police, via Twitter, castigated people who “play an appalling game with fear” and warned: “Brace yourselves, investigations have been launched.”

In the days since, Munich police have made good on their threat, taking Twitter users in for questioning, with charges looming in several cases.

Many were copycat posts of those made by the lone gunman; others claimed to have heard of shooting in other parts of the city.

“We have sent official requests for user information from social media companies,” said a police spokesman. “If a fake post lead to a police deployment, the users responsible will, at the very least, face a bill for the resulting costs.”

Hoaxers

Over the weekend, Munich police spelled out just how expensive a business fake posts can be for social media hoaxers.

“Per officer on duty we bill €54 an hour. If a helicopter is deployed, it’s €3,460 per hour,” the post continued. “Very quickly a sum comes together that may have to be paid off over a lifetime.”

It is not just Munich police who have been grappling with fake social media terror warnings. In Wiesbaden, police were called in after online claims – later exposed as a false alarm – that there had been an attack on a bus. In Stuttgart, meanwhile, reports spread on social media of a man with a rucksack arrested near a city kindergarten.

“The kindergarten called us, saying they’d been told to keep the children indoors,” a Stuttgart police spokesman said.

Intervene

The wave of fake social media has prompted federal interior minister Thomas de Maizère to intervene, pointing out that false reports that hinder police work are an offence.

Learning from their Munich colleagues, Berlin police have launched their own campaign against fake posts, but also against so-called online trolls.

It arose after a shooting in a Berlin clinic last week prompted a series of Twitter users to demand information about the perpetrator’s nationality. The nature of the attack, wrote one angry poster, suggested the perpetrator “didn’t sound like” a typical German “Kai-Uwe”.

Berlin police intervened quickly, warning that the previous week’s events in Munich had illustrated “the importance of avoiding rumours”.

Then they concluded: “A message to all the trolling attention-seekers: tell it to your reflection.”

Back in Munich, meanwhile, on Monday police announced their first arrest for a fake terror warning: a drunk 22- year-old who phoned in a bomb threat on a boat regatta on Saturday. Police are still searching for a second person whose anonymous phone call on Saturday triggered a bomb alert and evacuation of Munich Pasing train station and the adjoining shopping centre.