On Friday 19 January, the European Commission unveiled the highly-awaited results of its third assessment of the Code of Conduct introduced in 2016 to tackle illegal hate speech online. The Commission has warned on several occasions that it will not hesitate to introduce legislation if the current voluntary approach does not lead to a positive outcome, but in the light of ‘good progress’ by companies that have signed the Code of Conduct, - Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube, the likelihood of legislation is diminishing.
‘The digital Wild West is a thing of the past,’ said Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová at a press conference. She was particularly enthusiastic because she explained that Google + and Instagram said on Thursday that they will be joining the Code of Conduct.
The report notes progress in terms of notifying, processing and scrapping hate content online. All the Code of Conduct participants now meet the target of examining the majority of notifications received on the same day, achieving on average more than 81% rather than 51% for the previous assessment, explained the Commission. Facebook is top of the league with 89.3% of notifications evaluated in less than 24 hours, followed by Twitter (80.2 %) and YouTube (62.7%).
On average, in 70% of cases, the Internet giants have responded to notifications of hate speech by removing the content. The percentage is constantly rising. Six months earlier, it stood at 59%, and 28% for the first assessment.
The Commission’s report also gives an overview of trends country-by-country. Belgium has seen a sharp rise, from 51.2% of content removed in May 2017 to 83% in December 2017. Other countries, however, have seen a fall since the previous assessment. In France, for example, the withdrawal rate has fallen from 82% to 75%. In Italy, it has fallen to 66.9% from 81.7% in May 2017. The Commissioner said this was due to a number of factors, including lack of human resources and technical problems, as much as a fall in hateful messages in the countries in question.
The Commission feels that a return of information to users is still lacking (see EUROPE 11800). The results show that companies have sent a message back in just under 70% of notifications, and notes the huge difference among companies. Facebook replied to 94.8% of notifications, Twitter to 70% and YouTube to 20%.
In the light of these positive results, Jourová said it was now likely that the European Commission would continue with the voluntary approach (the Code of Conduct) rather than legislating as it had previously considered doing (see EUROPE 11929), but said this did not give the Internet giants carte blanche because if their efforts ceased or even slowed down, extra measures could always be considered. They have been warned.
The results of the assessment will be discussed on 26 January at a meeting of European justice ministers in Sofia, which will provide the Commissioner with an additional opportunity to promote the benefits of the Code of Conduct to ministers favouring legislation. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)