The purpose of the law is to criminalize hate crimes and more effectively combat the spread of fake news and other content in the social media arena. These include defamation, spreading rumours, slandering, inciting the public to commit crimes, ethnic enmity, promotion of violence, and threats. The Social Media Act introduced social media compliance rules, instructing social network operators to more promptly and comprehensively address user complaints, particularly complaints about hate crimes and other criminal content.

These include legal obligations to report how the social network deals with hate crimes and other criminal content, administrative arrangements for effective complaints handling, and provisions for the appointment of a complaint receiver residing in Germany. In case of violation of these obligations, the enterprise and the official responsible for supervision may be fined. In addition, citizens who suffered from human rights violations on social networks were given the opportunity to obtain the registration information of rights violators from the network operator based on the court's decision.