The EU urges tech companies to take faster action on hate speech.
In May 2016, several US tech companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Twitter signed a code of conduct which required them to address the issue of hate speech on their platforms in a more efficient way. However, it seems that since then, companies have underperformed in this task.
As a consequence, the European Union has urged the signatories of the code of conduct as well as other media platforms to take a more proactive attitude in combating hate speech, posts which promote violence and terrorism.
Until now, tech companies did not approach this issue with the attention it deserves, as cracking down on hate speech may seem like a breach of the right to free speech, and as a result, they would lose users. As such, they were not very efficient in their task.
EU officials have stated that in practice the tech companies in question only reviewed 40 percent of recorded cases in less than 24 hours. The number goes up to 80 percent after 48 hours. This falls behind the objectives set by the code of conduct which requires companies to take action against dangerous content in 24 hours.
This means that the objectives imposed by the EU can be realistically achieved through a consolidated effort on behalf of the companies. The EU’s recent statement on this issue is to urge the companies to do as they have pledged, otherwise, they will be forced to comply with new laws that would regulate how the companies should address hate speech.
Among the companies who signed the code of conduct, it seems that Google’s YouTube platform was the fastest one to act against reports of hate speech, while Twitter seems to have been the slowest one. A report on the company’s performance reveals that only 316 cases received a proper response out of a total of 600 what were recorded in a specific period. Additionally, content which was flagged as hate speech was only deleted in 163 cases.
This situation has been addressed by Vera Jourova, an EU Justice Commissioner, who stated that companies only have a few months to demonstrate that the non-legislative approach can work by acting more quickly and efficient in combating hate speech.
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