Hate Speech

The European approach to regulating and moderating the spread of hate speech online represents an interesting experiment in public-private collaboration.

A triad of normally unaffiliated institutions sit at the middle of this effort. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – particularly organisations with a background in promoting tolerance and fighting discrimination – are empowered to follow what happens on the platforms and "notify" content which they believe constitutes illegal hate speech. The platforms, in turn, evaluate 1) the notifications, 2) the local laws of the countries where a particular piece of content appears, and 3) their own community standards and guidelines. Based on that assessment, they decide if the content should be allowed to stay or taken down. Later the NGOs produce a report evaluating how much of the content they notified was taken down. The European Commission sits in the middle of the process – facilitating communication among the parties and providing periodic assessments of how much hate speech is slipping through despite the effort.

The unusual collaboration grew from equally unusual roots. Rather than imposing regulation, the European Commission encouraged platforms and NGOs to work together on this. Together, the three parties drew up a code of conduct on countering hate speech online (2016). To date, Dailymotion, Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Jeuxvideo, Microsoft, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube have all signed on. Periodic assessments – fed by national NGO reports – have judged progress. You can find out more about this remarkable experiment on the European Commission code of conduct web page. Evidence from the monitoring exercise appears below as well.

The code itself draws on a definition laid down in the European Union’s framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law (2008). It defines hate speech as "all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin, when carried out by the public dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material; Publicly condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes […], when the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to incite violence or hatred against such a group or a member of such a group."

More information about hate speech and the effort to regulate it is available on the World Intermediary Liability Map (WILMap), led by the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School.

Records 11 - 20 of 33


chart preview

Distribution of Roma Feeling Discriminated Against When Looking for Work in the Five Years Before the Survey (2016)

The chart shows the percentages of Roma who felt discriminated against when looking for work, during the reference period 2011 to 2016 in nine European Union member states. The European Union refers to EU28. The United Kingdom left the European Union on 31 January 2020.
chart preview

Engagement with Anti-Semitic Posts

The chart presents the distribution of posts containg anti-semitic content across various social media platforms, based on the results of the European Commission "The rise of anti-semitism online during the pandemic: A study of French and German content," prepared in 2021 and covering the period January 2020 - March 2021. The study aim to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic might have had on the proliferation of the online anti-semitism and which platforms are particulary prone to anti-semitic messaging in French and German. The results show that there is a significant difference between the engagement activity of anti-semitic posts between French language posts (9.5 millions) and German ones (2,148.8 millions). While most of the engagements with anti-semitic posts for both German and French language posts are found on Telegram, for French language posts Twitter has also a high engagement activity rate.
chart preview

Feedback Provided by Online Platforms to Different Types of User (2019)

This chart shows the per cent of feedback provided by online platforms to different types of users (general user or trusted flagger/reporter). The results are based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. The data shows that platforms have higher rates of providing feedback to trusted flaggers compared to the ones to the general users, with differences varying between 4.6% (Facebook) and 46.3% (Twitter). One of the European Commission's conclusions included in the fifth monitoring exercice is that online platforms must improve their feedback to users'notifications.
chart preview

Feedback Provided by Online Platforms to Different Types of User (2021)

This chart shows the per cent of feedback provided by online platforms to different types of users (general user or trusted flagger/reporter). The results are based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. The data shows that Facebook is informing consistently both trusted flaggers and general users, while Twitter, YouTube, TikTok and Instagram provide feedback more frequently when notifications come from trusted flaggers. Jeuxvideo has significantly increased its performance on feedback to users (it was 22.5% in 2020). One of the conclusions included in the sixth monitoring exercice is that notifications from general users continue to be often treated differently than those sent through special channels for “trusted flaggers”, with differences varying from 1.7% (Facebook) to 80% (TikTok).
chart preview

Feedback Provided to Different Types of User by Social Media Platforms

The chart shows the percent of users who reported posts who received feedback regarding their report on various social media platforms. Facebook was most likely to provide feedback to normal users and to trusted flaggers. All of the platforms were more likely to provide feedback to trusted flaggers than to normal users.
chart preview

Followers of Accounts with Anti-Semitic Posts

The chart presents the distribution of followers of accounts containing anti-semitic content across various social media platforms, based on the results of the European Commission "The rise of anti-semitism online during the pandemic: A study of French and German content," prepared in 2021 and covering the period January 2020 - March 2021. The study aim to understand the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic might have had on the proliferation of the online anti-semitism and which platforms are particulary prone to anti-semitic messaging in French and German. The data shows that French and German anti-semitic accounts had a combined following of almost 5.6 million followers (including people following multiple channels across multiple platforms). When it comes to activity and engagement, French channels had a total of over 1.65 million followers, whilst German channels had more than double this number, with almost four million followers.
chart preview

Grounds of Hatred Reported by Social Media Platforms

The chart shows the grounds of hatred reported for reviewed posts, based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. Xenophobia and sexual orientation were the most common grounds for hatred, while gender identity and afrophobia were the least common grounds for hatred.
chart preview

Grounds of Hatred Reported by Social Media Platforms (2019)

The chart shows the grounds of hatred reported for reviewed posts, based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. Sexual orientation and xenophobia were the most common grounds for hatred, while religion, race and national origin were the least common grounds for hatred.
chart preview

Grounds of Hatred Reported by Social Media Platforms (2021)

The chart shows the grounds of hatred reported for reviewed posts, based on data reported by social media platforms participating in the European Commission's Code of conduct. In 2021, sexual orientation and xenophobia were the most common grounds for hatred, while religion, race and ethnic origin were the least common grounds for hatred. (Note: The data on grounds of hatred are only an indication and are influenced by the number of notifications sent by each organisation as well as their field of work.)
chart preview

Harassment Experienced Due to Roma Background

The chart presents the shares of Roma respondents that have experienced some form of harassment due to their ethnic origin in the 12 months before the survey. The results show that, in 2016, almost every third Roma survey respondent (31% of men and 29% of women) believed that they had experienced, at least once, some form of ethnic-based harassment during the previous year.