Online Library

The use of the internet by extreme right-wing groups is nothing new (see, for example, Conway et al., 2019; Hale, 2012) although its use by extremists has traditionally been in conjunction with activity organised on the ground (e.g. marches, meetings or organised events; Mudde, 2000). While some far-right organisations still operate in this way, the emergence of the Alternative Right (Alt-Right), which operates predominantly online, has redefined far-right extremism and enabled radical white male nationalists to unify (Neiwert, 2017: 258). The affordances of the online environment have similarly united a range of men’s rights groups: from those campaigning against the repression of traditional gender roles to those which define themselves through extreme misogyny, blaming feminism for the perceived emasculation and degradation of men. These collectives are together known as the manosphere (a term coined in 20 09 on the blog The Manosphere).

This paper analyses the policy and legal implications related to the promotion of quality online content that supports and reinforces institutional and societal efforts to prevent, counteract and deflate radical discourses leading to violent behaviour. This analysis will focus on content disseminated via online platforms or intermediaries, and in particular on the intermediaries providing hosting services, who offer a relatively wide range of services for online storage, distribution, and sharing; social networking, collaborating and gaming; or searching and referencing.

In the course of the last years, the European Union (EU) institutions, and the Commission (EC) in particular, have shown a growing concern regarding the use of online intermediary platforms for the dissemination of illegal content, particularly content of terrorist nature. Despite lack of complete certainty and differences between member States about what terrorist content the law prohibits, or even can prohibit consistent with fundamental rights to free expression, the truth is that there is a broad consensus among the national authorities that legislative and regulatory measures should be enacted both at the European and national levels in order to guarantee the swift and almost automatic detection and removal of content related to the commission of acts of terrorism. The political positions and non-binding documents produced so far have progressively incorporated the notion of “responsibility” for intermediaries, although this could not necessarily be equated to a straightforward intention to impose conventional legal liability obligations on such actors. In particular, the initiatives undertaken so far by the EU institutions basically aimed at promoting platforms’ voluntary cooperation with public authorities to detect and remove online illegal content (including terrorist content). Such initiatives include the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online, the Recommendation on measures to effectively tackle illegal speech online, the Guidelines on Freedom of Expression Online and Offline, and the EU Internet Forum. Above all these recommendations, agreements and soft-law standards, the general legally applicable regime has remained so far intact since its approval in 2000:Directive 2000/31/EC, known as the e-commerce Directive, establishes liability exemptions for intermediaries under certain conditions of lack of knowledge of illegal activity or information and expeditious removal and disabling upon knowledge (article 14). The Directive also includes an important provision regarding the absence of any legal obligation for providers to monitor content (article 15).The new proposed Regulation on preventing the dissemination of terrorist content online, which was the object of a first discussion on September 19-20 during the meeting of EU leaders in Salzburg under the Austrian Presidency, may represent a change in the above mentioned approach.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

This article examines the complexities of regulating hate speech on the Internet through legal frameworks. It demonstrates the limitations of unilateral national content legislation and the difficulties inherent in multilateral efforts to regulate the Internet. The article highlights how the US commitment to free speech has undermined European efforts to construct a truly international regulatory system. It is argued that a broad coalition of citizens, industry and government, employing technological, educational and legal frameworks, may offer the most effective approach through which to limit the effects of hate speech originating from outside of European borders.