Today, the European Commission released the results of its seventh evaluation of the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online.
This year’s results unfortunately show a decrease in companies’ notice-and-action results: the number of notifications reviewed by the companies within 24 hours dropped as compared to the last two monitoring exercises, from 90.4% in 2020, to 81% in 2021, and 64.4% in 2022. TikTok is the only company that improved its time of assessment. The removal rate, at 63.6%, is also considerably lower than at its peak in 2020 (71%). Only YouTube performed better on this parameter than in the last two years. There is, however, a positive development on the companies’ frequency and quality of feedback to users, something which the Commission had been calling on companies to improve in the 2021 report.
To support the implementation of the Code of Conduct and address the gaps in notice-and-action, the IT companies and the network of trusted flagger organisations involved in the monitoring exercises have agreed on an action framework. It lays down cooperation initiatives between the parties, where they commit to strengthening their dialogue to counter hate speech online. The Commission will continue monitoring the implementation of the Code of Conduct.
