“Hate does not start with violence. It starts with words”, said the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, on Wednesday 18 June, to mark the International Day for Countering Hate Speech.
“Hate speech and hate crime are not separate problems — they exist on a continuum”, continued the Secretary General, noting the two recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers devoted to these issues.
For him, one of the most pressing threats is “the mass production of hate — amplified in the digital age”.
“Hate is not just spreading — it is being monetised, weaponised, and optimised”.
Alain Berset is therefore calling for “greater responsibility on the part of the platforms: transparency on the criteria used to rank content, labelling of comments generated by AI, concrete consequences when harmful content is ‘boosted’”.
The regulations, he continues, “must be clear, proportionate and based on the European Convention on Human Rights”.
In this regard, he noted the Court’s case law and emphasised that it “draws the line where it should be: between free expression and deliberate harm”.
For the Secretary General, hate speech represents a challenge to democracy itself, and must be incorporated into the Council of Europe’s work on a New Democratic Pact for Europe, which will be based on three pillars: educate, protect and innovate “by adapting our institutions to confront fast-moving, cross-border, hybrid threats”.
Alain Berset’s speech is part of No Hate Speech Week (17-20 June), an event organised by the Council of Europe’s anti-discrimination department as part of a joint EU-Council of Europe project, supported this year by the Maltese Presidency of the Council of Europe.
Michael McGrath, EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, and Francesca Camilleri Vettiger, Permanent Representative of Malta to the Council of Europe, also spoke at the launch.
Link to the speech: https://aeur.eu/f/he7 (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)