European Commission calls to speed up efforts to remove illegal content online

BRUSSELS, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Five European Commissioners will meet with representatives of online platforms to discuss progress made in tackling the spread of illegal content online and the breaches of intellectual property rights on Tuesday, the EU's executive arm said Monday.

Illegal content online includes online terrorist propaganda and xenophobic, racist or hate speech. Commissioners said before the meeting that terrorist propaganda and content online is a serious threat to security, safety and fundamental rights, and demands a collective response from all actors.

They called for the online platforms to step up and speed up their efforts to tackle these threats quickly and comprehensively, including closer cooperation with national and enforcement authorities, increased sharing of know-how between online players and further action against the reappearance of illegal content.

In May 2016, the European Commission and four major social media platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, announced a code of conduct on countering illegal online hate speech.

An evaluation released in June 2017 showed that in 59 percent of the cases on average, the IT companies responded to notifications concerning illegal hate speech by removing the content, which was more than twice the level that was recorded six months before. Enditem