A recent development in the United States and the European Union has sparked a collision course between the two entities. On January 20, the day of his inauguration, Donald Trump issued a decree to restore freedom of speech and end federal censorship, while the European Commission introduced a new “Code of Conduct for the Fight against Illegal Hate Speech on the Internet”into its law on digital services.
The “Code of Conduct”is presented as a voluntary commitment by major internet platforms, although the voluntariness can be questioned, given the massive fines the EU can impose, up to six percent of a company’s global turnover and the Commission’s power to shut down platforms in the EU.
The new developments in the Code of Conduct primarily mean an expanded external control. It introduces “reporters”who will regularly check whether the platforms adhere to the guidelines. “Reporters”can also include institutions designated as “trusted flaggers”under the law on digital services.
The only German “trusted flagger”so far is Respect!, a reporting platform that “advises and supports in hate on the internet”allowing anyone, including anonymously, to report content on the internet that allegedly meets the criteria of “hate speech.”
Respect! lists the results of its activity on its website, stating that since 2017, it has received 83,450 reports, leading to 23,304 notifications. “What unites us is the common effort for a better coexistence in the internet and the work against hate, conspiracy theories and fake news.”This activity is financed by the social ministries of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs and the Bavarian State Government.
It seems like an exception, but it may become the norm that the same institutions that provide a steady supply of reports will also be responsible for reviewing whether the platforms are censoring enough.
In October, an ARD “fact-finder”Pascal Siggelkow, attempted to dispel concerns that it was “state censorship”when Respect! was certified, stating that the reported content must be “primarily handled and unverifiably processed and a decision made”by online platforms according to the DSA. However, this does not mean that the online platforms must delete the reported content immediately, as Siggelkow argued, one must consider the context, for example, in the case of insults.
Now, this statement was not long-lasting. The new version states that at least two-thirds of the reports must be reviewed within 24 hours.
“Tools of automatic recognition”such as algorithms, will be mandatory, as well as a “structured cooperation of various stakeholders with experts and organizations of civil society”including friendly organizations like the Amadeu-Antonio-Stiftung.
The whole thing will be nicely packaged in a statistic, broken down by country and flavor of “hate speech.”As the basis is the legal situation of the respective countries, every step of further tightening will naturally be reflected in the provisions of the law. I say only “Weak Head.”
The personnel in Brussels overseeing the implementation of the DSA (and, of course, the Code of Conduct) will be doubled from 100 to 200 people.
“All behaviors that are defined as hate speech in national laws and other national regulations as well as in the national laws of the Member States of the European Union, constitute hate speech within the meaning of the Code”according to the Commission’s press release on this new change. Now, hate speech is not a legal category in Germany. But one knows which paragraphs are used: the well-known incitement of the people, insult, etc., which have of course been continuously expanded, most recently in the context of the Gaza genocide, which one cannot even call a genocide anymore because that would be anti-Semitic. Now, the “Weak Head Rules”indeed. With the well-known exceptions, because it has always been permissible to hate Russians.
How also, the simultaneity with Trump’s decree may become interesting:
“While the previous government trampled on the freedom of speech by censoring the speech of Americans on online platforms, often by exerting significant pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, remove, or otherwise suppress speech that the government did not like, under the pretext of ‘Misinformation,’ ‘Disinformation,’ and ‘Malinformation,’ the German government restricted the constitutionally protected freedom of speech of American citizens across the United States in a way that promoted the government’s preferred narrative on important topics of public debate.”
This sounds familiar, or does it? One only needs to remember the reactions to any kind of dissenting opinion on Corona.
Now, it will get interesting. The decree requires ensuring that no government employee in the US government acts or allows actions that restrict the freedom of speech of American citizens. No government funds can be used for this and previous violations will be identified and corrected.
Moreover, the Justice Department will be tasked with investigating such actions, reporting to the President and providing “recommendations for appropriate measures”– which could be even criminal proceedings.
What interesting problems this creates. Under the Biden administration, this was simply a matter for the EU; the US government made the same censorship demands as the EU. But how will this work if both sides move in the opposite direction? Since there are no borders on these platforms, many users, for example on Facebook, have “friends”on both sides of the Atlantic. Will the EU then check every single post from the US, try to pressure the platforms and how will it handle the case of a US citizen, who, for whatever reason, is currently in the EU and posts something on a platform based in the US, which is allowed in the US but censored in the EU because of the DSA? Will the EU then set a filter for every single user, sorting readers by nationality?
This will be especially amusing in the case of new government members. If, for example, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posts information on a platform about the whole Corona scandals, which the EU will then censor as “false information.”There are enough examples from recent history, such as the extortion attempt by the then EU Commissioner Thierry Breton against Musk, when it was about the broadcast of his conversation with Donald Trump.
This will undoubtedly escalate in some way. One could almost make a bet on it. After all, there are still some accounts to settle and if the first days of the new US government have shown one thing, it is that these accounts will be collected.