European Commission welcomes the integration of the revised Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online into the Digital Services Act
January 20, 2025
The European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services welcome the integration of the revised ‘Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online +' into the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which encourages voluntary codes of conduct to tackle risks online. The Code of conduct+, which builds on the 2016 on the initial Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online was signed by Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. The signatories of the Code of conduct+ commit to, among other things:
- Allow a network of ‘Monitoring Reporters', which are not-for-profit or public entities with expertise on illegal hate speech, to regularly monitor how the signatories are reviewing hate speech notices: Monitoring reporters may include entities designated as ‘Trusted Flaggers' under the DSA.
- Undertake best efforts to review at least two thirds of hate speech notices received from Monitoring Reporters within 24 hours.
- Engage with well-defined and specific transparency commitments as regards measures to reduce the prevalence of hate speech on their services, including through automatic detection tools.
- Participate in structured multi-stakeholder cooperation with experts and civil society organisations that can flag the trends and developments of hate speech that they observe, helping to prevent waves of hate speech from going viral.
- Raise, in cooperation with civil society organisations, users' awareness about illegal hate speech and the procedures to flag illegal content online.
Commission welcomes the integration of the revised Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online into the Digital Ser