The European Commission has warned Thursday that there has been a decline in the actions of digital platforms to curb hate speech on the Internet, according to the evaluation of the annual report of the European Commission’s Code of Conduct against this phenomenon.
This year the report records a setback in the fight against hate speech on the Internet and notes that technology companies took fewer actions to combat this issue. In particular, it notes a drop in the number of notifications reviewed by companies. From 90.4% in 2020, 81% in 2021, to 64.4% this year, with TikTok being the only company to improve its controls.
The reported content removal ratio was 63.6% also below the data recorded in 2020, when it reached a record 71%. In this section, only YouTube improved its controls in the last two years, but other platforms such as Facebook and Twitter took steps backwards in this aspect.
Overall, 69.6% of content that encouraged violence against individuals or social groups was removed, and 59.3% of cases in which defamatory language or images were used to refer to social groups.
Brussels does note a positive evolution in the frequency and quality of comments from companies to users, something the Commission had asked companies to improve in its report last year.
