Brussels, 31 May
2016
The Commission together with
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft (“the IT companies”) today unveil a
code of conduct that includes a series of commitments to combat the spread of
illegal hate speech online in Europe.
The IT Companies
support the European Commission and EU Member States in the effort to respond
to the challenge of ensuring that online platforms do not offer opportunities
for illegal online hate speech to spread virally. They share, together
with other platforms and social media companies, a collective responsibility
and pride in promoting and facilitating freedom of expression throughout the
online world. However, the Commission and the IT Companies recognise that the
spread of illegal hate speech online not only negatively affects the groups or
individuals that it targets, it also negatively impacts those who speak out for
freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our open societies and has a
chilling effect on the democratic discourse on online platforms.
In order to prevent the spread
of illegal hate speech, it is essential to ensure that relevant national laws
transposing the Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia
are fully enforced by Member States in the online as well as the in the offline
environment. While the effective application of provisions criminalising hate
speech is dependent on a robust system of enforcement of criminal law sanctions
against the individual perpetrators of hate speech, this work must be
complemented with actions geared at ensuring that illegal hate speech online is
expeditiously reviewed by online intermediaries and social media
platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame.
To be considered valid in this respect, a notification should not be insufficiently
precise or inadequately substantiated.
Vĕra Jourová, EU
Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, said, "The
recent terror attacks have reminded us of the urgent need to address illegal
online hate speech. Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that
terrorist groups use to radicalise young people and racist use to spread
violence and hatred. This agreement is an important step forward to
ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression,
where European values and laws are respected. I welcome the commitment of
worldwide IT companies to review the majority of valid notifications for
removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable
access to such content, if necessary."
Twitter’s Head of Public
Policy for Europe, Karen White, commented: “Hateful conduct has no
place on Twitter and we will continue to tackle this issue head on alongside
our partners in industry and civil society. We remain committed to letting the
Tweets flow. However, there is a clear distinction between freedom of
expression and conduct that incites violence and hate. In tandem with actioning
hateful conduct that breaches Twitter’s Rules, we also leverage the platform’s
incredible capabilities to empower positive voices, to challenge prejudice and
to tackle the deeper root causes of intolerance. We look forward to further
constructive dialogue between the European Commission, member states, our
partners in civil society and our peers in the technology sector on this
issue.”
Google’s Public Policy and
Government Relations Director, Lie Junius, said: “We’re committed to
giving people access to information through our services, but we have always
prohibited illegal hate speech on our platforms. We have efficient systems to
review valid notifications in less than 24 hours and to remove illegal content.
We are pleased to work with the Commission to develop co- and self-regulatory
approaches to fighting hate speech online."
Monika Bickert, Head of Global
Policy Management at Facebook said: "We welcome today’s announcement
and the chance to continue our work with the Commission and wider tech industry
to fight hate speech. With a global community of 1.6 billion people we work
hard to balance giving people the power to express themselves whilst ensuring
we provide a respectful environment. As we make clear in our Community
Standards, there’s no place for hate speech on Facebook. We urge people to use
our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards
so we can investigate. Our teams around the world review these reports around
the clock and take swift action.”
John Frank, Vice President EU
Government Affairs at Microsoft, added: “We value civility and free
expression, and so our terms of use prohibit advocating violence and hate
speech on Microsoft-hostedconsumer services. We recently announced additional
steps to specifically prohibit the posting of terrorist content. We will
continue to offer our users a way to notify us when they think that our policy
is being breached. Joining the Code of Conduct reconfirms our commitment
to this important issue."
By signing this code of
conduct, the IT companies commit to continuing their efforts to tackle illegal
hate speech online. This will include the continued development of internal
procedures and staff training to guarantee that they review the majority of
valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours
and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary. The IT companies
will also endeavour to strengthen their ongoing partnerships with civil society
organisations who will help flag content that promotes incitement to violence
and hateful conduct. The IT companies and the European Commission also aim to
continue their work in identifying and promoting independent
counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives, and supporting educational
programs that encourage critical thinking.
The IT Companies also
underline that the present code of conduct is aimed at guiding their own
activities as well as sharing best practices with other internet companies,
platforms and social media operators.
The code of conduct includes
the following public
commitments:
·
The IT Companies, taking the lead on countering the
spread of illegal hate speech online, have agreed with the European Commission
on a code of conduct setting the following public
commitments:
·
The IT Companies to have in place clear and effective
processes to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their
services so they can remove or disable access to such content. The IT companies
to have in place Rules or Community Guidelines clarifying that they prohibit
the promotion of incitement to violence and hateful conduct.
·
Upon receipt of a valid removal notification, the IT
Companies to review such requests against their rules and community guidelines
and where necessary national laws transposing the Framework Decision
2008/913/JHA, with dedicated teams reviewing requests.
·
The IT Companies to review the majority of valid
notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and
remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.
·
In addition to the above, the IT Companies to educate
and raise awareness with their users about the types of content not permitted
under their rules and community guidelines. The use of the notification system
could be used as a tool to do this.
·
The IT companies to provide information on the
procedures for submitting notices, with a view to improving the speed and
effectiveness of communication between the Member State authorities and the IT
Companies, in particular on notifications and on disabling access to or removal
of illegal hate speech online. The information is to be channelled through the
national contact points designated by the IT companies and the Member States
respectively. This would also enable Member States, and in particular their law
enforcement agencies, to further familiarise themselves with the methods to recognise
and notify the companies of illegal hate speech online.
·
The IT Companies to encourage the provision of notices
and flagging of content that promotes incitement to violence and hateful
conduct at scale by experts, particularly via partnerships with CSOs, by
providing clear information on individual company Rules and Community
Guidelines and rules on the reporting and notification processes. The IT
Companies to endeavour to strengthen partnerships with CSOs by widening the
geographical spread of such partnerships and, where appropriate, to provide
support and training to enable CSO partners to fulfil the role of a
"trusted reporter" or equivalent, with due respect to the need of
maintaining their independence and credibility.
·
The IT Companies rely on support from Member States
and the European Commission to ensure access to a representative network of CSO
partners and "trusted reporters" in all Member States helping to help
provide high quality notices. IT Companies to make information about "trusted
reporters" available on their websites.
· The IT Companies to provide regular training to their
staff on current societal developments and to exchange views on the potential
for further improvement.
·
The IT Companies to intensify cooperation between
themselves and other platforms and social media companies to enhance best
practice sharing.
·
The IT Companies and the European Commission,
recognising the value of independent counter speech against hateful rhetoric
and prejudice, aim to continue their work in identifying and promoting
independent counter-narratives, new ideas and initiatives and supporting
educational programs that encourage critical thinking.
·
The IT Companies to intensify their work with CSOs to
deliver best practice training on countering hateful rhetoric and prejudice and
increase the scale of their proactive outreach to CSOs to help them deliver
effective counter speech campaigns. The European Commission, in cooperation
with Member States, to contribute to this endeavour by taking steps to map
CSOs' specific needs and demands in this respect.
·
The European Commission in coordination with Member
States to promote the adherence to the commitments set out in this code of
conduct also to other relevant platforms and social media companies.
The IT Companies and the
European Commission agree to assess the public commitments in this code of
conduct on a regular basis, including their impact. They also agree to further
discuss how to promote transparency and encourage counter and alternative
narratives. To this end, regular meetings will take place and a preliminary
assessment will be reported to the High Level Group on Combating Racism,
Xenophobia and all forms of intolerance by the end of 2016.
Background
The Commission has been
working with social media companies to ensure that hate speech is tackled
online similarly to other media channels.
The e-Commerce Directive (article 14) has led to
the development of take-down procedures, but does not regulate them in
detail. A “notice-and-action” procedure begins when someone notifies a
hosting service provider – for instance a social network, an e-commerce
platform or a company that hosts websites – about illegal content on the
internet (for example, racist content, child abuse content or spam) and is
concluded when a hosting service provider acts against the illegal
content.
Following the EU Colloquium on Fundamental Rights in
October 2015 on ‘Tolerance and respect: preventing and combating
Antisemitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe’, the Commission
initiated a dialogue with IT companies, in cooperation with Member States and
civil society, to see how best to tackle illegal online hate speech which
spreads violence and hate.
The recent terror attacks and
the use of social media by terrorist groups to radicalise young people have
given more urgency to tackling this issue.
The Commission already launched in December 2015 the EU
Internet Forum to protect the public from the spread of
terrorist material and terrorist exploitation of communication channels to
facilitate and direct their activities. The Joint Statement of the extraordinary
Justice and Home Affairs Council following the Brussels terrorist attacks
underlined the need to step up work in this field and also to agree on a Code
of Conduct on hate speech online.
The Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and
Xenophobia criminalises the public incitement to violence or hatred directed
against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to
race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. This is the legal
basis for defining illegal online content.
Freedom of expression is a
core European value which must be preserved. The European Court of Human Rights
set out the important distinction between content that "offends, shocks
or disturbs the State or any sector of the population" and content
that contains genuine and serious incitement to violence and hatred. The Court
has made clear that States may sanction or prevent the latter.
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