Four technology and social media titans, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter all recently bowed in agreement with the European Union’s new rules regarding what they continue to refer to as “hate speech”.
The EU has declared that these companies must regulate this type of speech and come up with explicit plans for how they will infiltrate their networks and regulate it or remove it. This will also apply to the world’s largest search engine, YouTube, as it is currently owned by Google.
When a specific request is made by someone demanding that one of these sites remove something they have found to be offensive, the EU has demanded that these companies respond within a 24 hour period to these requests. In addition, the EU demands that these companies must tell and advise users on what exactly will be allowed at their sites and what will not.
The EU, as always, seems more concerned with political correctness and coercion than with free speech. The four tech and social media companies, by agreeing with them, have also shown a disregard for free speech. A joint statement, however, by the EU and the companies said that they were dedicated to these channels being a place for “free expression.”
In a public statement, the EU commission in charge stated that, “This agreement is an important step forward to insure that the internet a place of free and democratic expression where European laws and values are respected.”
No one, including the European Union authorities, has ever defined what they so cavalierly call “hate speech”.
What the EU said has spurred the rules changes was the recent attack in March in Brussels that left 32 people dead. They mentioned that certain groups were using both YouTube and Facebook in their recruitment strategies.
The challenges that remain, some human rights and free speech experts have pointed out, can be many. These American based companies have said nothing about American values or the constitutional guarantees of free speech that every American citizen has. Also, free speech advocates in the United States see a problem with anonymous flagging of material by third parties who never have to stand up and identify themselves. It is they, apparently, who will define what offends them and is to be labeled as “hate speech”. Knee jerk politically correct responses have always followed this type of situation historically.
Spokesman for San Francisco based The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Danny O’Brien, said in response to the new situation that, “It does not address that different speech is deemed illegal in different jurisdictions nor how such ‘voluntary agreements’ between the private sector and the state might be imitated or misused outside Europe.”
In addition, no one seems to consider certain speech that they regard as “hateful” as having the same EU protections of “free and democratic expression” as any other dictated “non-hate” speech. If speech is regulated at all, by anyone, then it seems to follow that “free and democratic expression” doesn’t really exist as a concept or practice.
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