There’s no arguing that technological advancements are beneficial to society as a whole, but even the greatest inventions can be used for malevolent purposes in the wrong hands. Such is the case with social networks which are used by billions of people for communication, news, and entertainment on a daily basis. Unfortunately, even though (most) social networks don’t discriminate in terms of whom do they grant access to use them, the same can’t be said for all of their users who often use these popular platforms to spread hate speech.
Well, the European Union has had enough of that and has been pressuring owners of the largest social platforms on the planet to help it eliminate hate speech from the Internet. These latest endeavors have mostly been prompted by the recent rise of online racism which occurred in response to the European refugee crisis. That isn’t to say the EU and global tech giants are only looking to suppress hate speech related to the refugee crisis, but it’s definitely a big part of the reason why earlier today, YouTube, Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter have agreed to new EU regulations in regards to online hate speech. As a part of the said deal, the companies have pledged that they’ll be reviewing all removal requests flagged as related to any kind of hateful content within the first 24 hours after they’ve received them. After validating the existence of hateful speech, the four giants have promised to make sure to either completely remove said content or disable access to it, depending on exact circumstances.
Apart from dealing with hateful reactions of the western users of social media in regards to the refugee crisis, the global tech giants are also looking to suppress the root cause of the current issue, the people responsible for the Syrian crisis in the first place. For instance, Google has recently stressed the importance of stopping ISIS‘ open web use. The current European Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová has stated that resolving online hate speech recently became more important than ever not only because of Europe’s own citizens practicing this illegal behavior with increased frequency but also due to numerous terrorist groups which are trying to recruit young and impressionable minds using social media and other modern technological advancements like mobile apps.