February 11, 2019

The Commission says that the fourth evaluation on the EU Code of Conduct shows that the Commission’s most recent initiative has delivered successful results.

According to the Commission, since the launch of the Code of Conduct in 2016, IT companies are now assessing 89% of flagged content within 24 hours and 72% of the content deemed to be illegal hate speech is removed, compared to 40% and 28% respectively when the Code was first launched in 2016. However, the Commission says that companies need to improve their feedback to users.

The Commission says that companies remove illegal content more and more rapidly, but this does not lead to over-removal: the removal rate indicates that the review made by the companies continues to respect freedom of expression. Further, thanks to the Code, partnerships between civil society organisations, national authorities and IT platforms have been established on awareness raising and education activities.

Finally, five new companies decided to join the Code in the course of 2018: Google+, Instagram, Snapchat, Dailymotion and the French gaming platform, Webedia (jeuxvideo.com). To read the Commission’s press release in full, click here.