Online hatred, the consequences of which reached a new high in horror with the assassination of Samuel Paty, could be tackled with a European response.
Friday, in Brussels, France once again pushed in this direction through the voice of Jean Castex, on the sidelines of his presentation of the French recovery plan to the Brussels authorities.
Because, since 2018, a regulation is being negotiated on the withdrawal of terrorist content online.
Here are four main areas:
The one hour deadline: illegal content must be removed within one hour of being reported by the competent national authorities;
A precise definition of terrorist content: anything that incites, promotes or justifies the commission of terrorist crimes;
A proactive fight by online platforms, which are required to ensure that they prevent the republication of deleted content;
The establishment of immediate and permanent means of communication between the platforms, the Member States and Europol.
The text is continuing its course, but still has to overcome the reluctance of the European Parliament which rightly raises obvious risks of infringement on freedom of expression.
Last April, MEPs from the Civil Liberties Committee (Libe) put up important safeguards, very well detailed in this Context article that I advise you to read (paid link).
Here are the main ones:
Considered arbitrary, the one hour time limit was ultimately not removed.
But it is framed: the withdrawal injunction can only come from an independent or judicial authority;
The competent authorities can only request the removal of content on a platform established in its own country, in order to prevent an undemocratic government from demanding the removal of content that it does not like on a foreign service;
Platforms are no longer required to detect republished content after its deletion, as opponents of the measure raise a risk of generalized surveillance a priori.
The European Parliament also blocks on the definition of terrorist content, many
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