‘EU considers rules for removal of hate messages on the internet’

The European Union is considering regulating how companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter remove content that incites hatred or violence from the internet. This is evident from a draft document, which has been seen by the Reuters news agency.

The news agency reports that the document suggests that the European Commission plans to come up with legislation or other tools before the end of this year to “address the legal fragmentation and uncertainty surrounding the removal of illegal content by online platforms’. The European Union would have found that there are many differences between the approaches used by the various parties.

One of the measures the Commission is considering is that internet companies should not be held liable for illegal content as long as they make an active effort to detect it. This means that companies should take a more active role, the Commission hopes. The overall goal would be to “clarify the role of online businesses without affecting their limitation of liability,” according to Reuters.

Earlier this month, Germany introduced a bill that would require social networks to delete messages labeled as “hate crime” within a day of a report. If they do not, they risk a fine of up to 50 million euros. In 2016, the EU, together with a number of tech companies, drew up a code of conduct against hate messages on the internet. At the end of that year, the Commission expressed its displeasure that the companies did not react quickly enough.