On Monday 8 January, the European Commission called upon the Internet industry to speed up its efforts to take down illicit online content, be it hate speech or terrorist propaganda. This call came as six Commissioners met representatives of several digital platforms in Brussels on Tuesday to take stock of progress made.
“Removal needs to be speedy: the longer illegal material stays online, the greater its reach, the more it can spread and grow. Building on the current voluntary approach, more efforts and progress have to be made”, Commissioners Andrus Ansip (Digital Single Market), Dimitris Avramopoulos (Home Affairs), Elzbieta Bienkowska (Single Market), Vera Jourova (Justice), Julian King (Security) and Mariya Gabriel (Digital Economy) said in a joint statement.
The Commission expects digital platforms to remove illegal content quickly and completely, to engage in closer cooperation with the national and law-enforcement authorities, to share expertise between online players and to set new measures in place to tackle the reappearance of removed content.
The Commission has made it clear several times that if the current voluntary approach does not work, it will not hesitate to legislate in 2018 (see EUROPE 11872). In the coming weeks, moreover, it will publish the results of the third evaluation of the code of conduct on online hate speech (see EUROPE 11929). (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)