Facebook, YouTube, X, and other tech companies have agreed to take additional measures to combat hate speech on the Internet under an updated code of conduct that will be implemented in the European Union's technical regulations. This was reported by Reuters.
Back in May 2016, Instagram, Microsoft, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, Twitch, Dailymotion, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Jeuxvideo.com, and Microsoft agreed to this. These companies will allow non-profit or governmental organizations with experience in combating hate speech to monitor their processes for reviewing such messages and evaluate at least two-thirds of such reports received within 24 hours.
"In Europe there is no place for illegal hate, either offline or online. I welcome the stakeholders' commitment to a strengthened Code of conduct under the Digital Services Act (DSA)," EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
In addition to this, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X and many other companies that have agreed to the new code will take additional measures, such as using automatic detection tools to reduce hate speech on their platforms. They will also provide information on the role of recommendation systems and on organic and algorithmic coverage of illegal content before it is removed.
Companies will report data from platforms such as Facebook at the country level. This information will also be disaggregated by internal hate speech classification, such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, or sexual orientation, etc.
The new practice will be applied on Meta's platforms despite the fact that the company recently made changes to its content moderation policy, which allowed Facebook to call women "household items".