On Monday 20 January, the European Commission announced the incorporation of the revised ‘Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online’ into the Digital Services Act (DSA). The commitments made by the major tech companies and platforms - X, TikTok, Meta, Snapchat, to name but a few - will now be incorporated into the DSA and will facilitate “compliance with and the effective enforcement of the DSA when it comes to risks of dissemination of illegal content”.
This ‘Code of Conduct +’, which builds on the initial Code of conduct of 2016, has been signed by Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, the various Microsoft services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube.
All future platforms potentially designated under the DSA can sign up to the Code of conduct to demonstrate their commitment to mitigate the risk of illegal content being distributed on their services.
The signatories, which still include X, have undertaken to set up a network of “monitoring reporters”, which are public or non-profit bodies with expertise in illegal hate speech, to monitor the way in which they manage and examine these reports.
Platforms are also required to review at least two-thirds of hate speech notifications within 24 hours.
Compliance with the commitments of the Code will now form part of the annual audit to which these platforms are subject as part of the DSA.
The integration of this Code implies a kind of ‘help’ for the major platforms covered by the Digital Services Act, and would serve as a reference point for the actions to be taken under the DSA obligations.
However, the Commission specifies that “participating in and implementing a given code of conduct does not in itself presume compliance with the DSA and is without prejudice to the Commission’s assessment on a case-by-case basis”.
The Code of Practice on Disinformation (see EUROPE 13379/8) is undergoing a similar process. Last October, the platforms asked the Commission to assess whether its content could also be included in the DSA under Article 45. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)