The EU Code of Conduct
To prevent and counter the spread of illegal hate speech online, in May 2016, the Commission agreed with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube a “Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online”.
In the course of 2018, Instagram, Google+, Snapchat and Dailymotion joined the Code of Conduct. Jeuxvideo.com joined in January 2019.
How it performs
The implementation of the Code of Conduct is evaluated through a regular monitoring exercise set up in collaboration with a network of organisations located in the different EU countries. Using a commonly agreed methodology, these organisations test how the IT companies are implementing the commitments in the Code.
Monitoring rounds
The EU Code of Conduct is providing a robust response to illegal hate speech online. Two and a half years after its adoption, the Code of Conduct is delivering continuous progress, and the recent evaluation confirms that IT companies provide a swift response to racist and xenophobic hate speech content notified to them.
The last evaluation shows that this Commission initiative delivers successful results: the companies are now assessing 89% of flagged content within 24 hours and 72% of the content deemed illegal hate speech is removed.
- 4th monitoring (Dec 2018)
- 3rd monitoring (Dec 2017)
- 2nd monitoring (May 2017)
- 1st monitoring (Dec 2016)