The European Commission Wants Tech Companies to Crack Down on Terror Content

It's new guidelines demand that tech companies remove terror content within the hour it's flagged.

Smartphone screen
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Image via Getty/Ant Palmer

Smartphone screen

The European Commission wants major tech companies to crack down on terrorist and other kinds of illegal content. As The Verge reports, the commission set for an exhaustive set of guidelines that includes recommendations for how to handle terrorist media, as well as other kinds of illicit content like that involving child sexual abuse, copyright infringement, counterfeit products, and other kinds of hate or violence-inciting material.

As part of their recommendations, the commission is demanding the removal of terrorist content within the hour it gets flagged. As the commission notes, the first few hours that material like that circulates are the most damaging. Vice president of the European Commission, Andrus Ansip explains, “While several platforms have been removing more illegal content than ever before—showing that self-regulation can work—we still need to react faster against terrorist propaganda and other illegal content which is a serious threat to our citizens’ security, safety, and fundamental rights.”

The commission’s recommendations also included tools and explicit procedures, as well as directives for human oversight, so that in the event something is incorrectly flagged, it can be restored. Under the proposed regulations, EU member states and tech companies would have to submit reports at three and six-month intervals for terrorist content and other illegal content, respectively.

While the guidelines are non-binding, the commission wants these policies to be adopted as a soft law while it decides on any formal legislative steps. However, as The Wall Street Journal points out, the recommendations may still hold up as legal references in court. Meanwhile, tech companies are concerned that these guidelines would encroach upon users’ freedom of expression. That’s not to say they haven’t thought about the issue. In 2016, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft, and Twitter all signed an EU code of conduct to address online hate speech.

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