The European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services released the new Code of conduct+, an expanded new tool to fight illegal hate speech online and that received the support of several tech companies to help in the fight against hate speech.
The code, part of the Digital Services Act (DSA), will have a network of ‘monitoring reporters” from NGOs and public sectors to check on how tech firms react to reported hate speech notices, with a target of reviewing at least two thirds of hate speech notices within 24 hours. The companies that will adhere to the code will also engage with transparency commitments and will cooperate with different stakeholders to better identify trends in hate speech and share good practices on how to deal with them.
Among the first signatories there are Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. The signatories of the code should release information of the outcomes taken and are encouraged to break down country-level data based on what type of hate speech it represents. The Commission and the board in charge will keep monitoring the code and its application as part of the routine monitoring of platforms’ compliance with the EU digital rules.
“I intend to work tirelessly to counter hate speech and hate crime in the EU. We trust this Code of conduct+ will do its part in ensuring a robust response,” said Michael McGrath, Commissioner for Justice and Consumer Protection.
The new conduct+ builds on a first system developed in 2016 against hate speech online and it is part of a discourse that the EU is developing since 2008 when they released their first Framework Decision against racism and xenophobia. As Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy said “in Europe there is no place for illegal hate, either offline or online.”
