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A group of tech companies have teamed up with the EU to announce a new Code of Conduct on illegal online hate speech, which will see them taking a much more active role in removing such speech from their platforms.  Amongst a number of other commitments the tech group (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft) have agreed:

  • to have in place clear and effective processes to review notifications regarding illegal hate speech on their services so they can remove or disable access to such content;
  • upon receipt of a valid removal notification, to review such requests against their rules and community guidelines and where necessary national laws, with dedicated teams reviewing requests; and
  • to review the majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech in less than 24 hours and remove or disable access to such content, if necessary.

This is just a snippet from the numerous other commitments that they are making.  If they take this seriously, it could involve them in significant admin.  The full list of commitments is set out in the announcement here.

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