Author: Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Met’s Facebook (NASDAQ: ), Elon Musk’s X, Google (NASDAQ: ) YouTube and other tech companies have agreed to do more to fight online hate speech under an updated code of conduct that will now be integrated into the EU’s Technical Rules -a, the European Commission announced on Monday.
Other signatories to the voluntary code set up in May 2016 include Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft (NASDAQ:) hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok and Twitch.
“There is no place in Europe for illegal hate, whether offline or online. I welcome the commitment of stakeholders to strengthen the Code of Conduct under the Digital Services Act (DSA),” EU Commissioner for Technical Affairs Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
The DSA requires technology companies to do more to combat illegal and harmful content on their platforms. Compliance with the updated code could affect enforcement of the Act by regulators, EU officials said.
Under the revised code, companies have pledged to allow nonprofit or public entities with expertise in illegal hate speech to monitor how they view hate speech notifications and to evaluate at least two-thirds of those notifications received from them within 24 hours.
Companies will also take measures, such as using automatic detection tools to reduce hate speech on their platforms, and provide information about the role of referral systems and the organic and algorithmic reach of illegal content before it is removed.
They will present country-level data broken down by internal hate speech classifications such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity or sexual orientation.
