EU: X, Facebook, YouTube Toughen Up Over Hate Speech

The EU’s Digital Single Market Act encourages technology companies to do more to address unlawful and harmful content on their networks. 

Meta‘s Facebook, Elon Musk‘s X, Google‘s YouTube, and other internet giants have agreed to do more to combat online hate speech under an amended code of conduct that will be included into EU tech legislation, the European Commission announced on Monday.

Meta, Google, TikTok, and X have all promised European politicians that they will do more to prevent and delete illegal hate speech from their platforms. On Monday, the European Commission incorporated a revised set of voluntary commitments into the Digital Services Act (DSA) with the goal of assisting platforms “demonstrate their compliance” with DSA responsibilities for unlawful material filtering.

Other participants to the May 2016 optional code include Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, and Twitch.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Dailymotion, Jeuxvideo.com, Rakuten Viber, and Microsoft-hosted consumer services have all signed the “Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online Plus” — not a bad name for a streaming service but an update to a 2016 Code. The updated agreement commits signatories to being transparent about hate speech identification and reduction, allowing third-party monitors to examine how hate speech notices are reviewed by platforms, and reviewing “at least two-thirds of hate speech notices” within 24 hours.

“In Europe, there is no room for criminal hatred, either offline or online. “I welcome the stakeholders’ commitment to a stronger Code of Conduct under the Digital Services Act (DSA),” EU technology commissioner Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.

These EU Codes of Conduct are optional commitments, and corporations face no consequences if they choose to withdraw from the agreement, as Elon Musk did with X (then known as Twitter) in 2022, when he removed the company from the Code of Practice on Disinformation.

The DSA mandates tech companies to take extra steps to fight illegal and harmful content on their networks. Compliance with the revised regulation might have an impact on how authorities enforce the Act, according to EU officials.

Under the new code, the firms agreed to allow non-profit or public bodies with experience in illegal hate speech to oversee how they examine hate speech notices, as well as to evaluate at least two-thirds of these notices within 24 hours.

The firms will also take steps to prevent hate speech on their platforms, such as using automatic detection techniques and disclosing information on the impact of recommendation algorithms and the organic and algorithmic reach of illegal content before it is removed.

They will give statistics at the country level, organized by internal hate speech classifications such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation.