European Union Urges Facebook, X, And YouTube To Tighten Supervision Of Online Hate Speech

JAKARTA Meta's Facebook, Elon Musk's X, Google's YouTube, and other technology companies agreed to step up efforts to deal with online hate speech under the updated code of ethics. This rule will be integrated into EU technology regulation through the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Commission said on Monday, January 20.

In addition to the three tech giants, other companies that signed this voluntary code of ethics include Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, and Twitch.

In Europe, there is no place for illegal hate speech, both offline and online. I welcome the commitment of stakeholders to the strengthened code of ethics under the Digital Services Act (DSA)," said Henna Vikkunen, EU Technology Commissioner, quoted by VOI from Reuters.

DSA requires technology companies to be more active in fighting illegal and harmful content on their platforms. Compliance with this updated code of ethics could affect the implementation of the rule by regulators, according to EU officials.

New Steps to Handle Hate Speech In the updated code of ethics, tech companies pledged to:

The company will also present state-level data that are broken down based on the internal classification of hate speech, such as based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

With this stricter regulation, the EU hopes to create a safer and freer online environment from hate speech that can trigger social conflict.