Relevance to Theme: When the World Wide Web was developed in the 90’s, hopes and expectations were high that it would be a space where people around the world could communicate freely and safely. However, in the last years it turned out that in particular social networks are often misused to distribute hate speech and unfortunately became a place where harassment and bullying takes place. Hence, people often experience the internet to be a hostile space where trust is fragile.
Although at first social networks were hesitant concerning their accountability for harmful third-party content, governments and civil society urged to remove harmful content from their platforms. Moreover, in some cases social networks agreed to participate in codes of conduct, in others legislators introduced a legal framework social networks have to comply with.
In this context, and in order to complement existing initiatives to regulate, monitor or report online hate speech, a more pro-active approach is needed to counteract hate speech online, building towards a secure, safe, stable and resilient internet environment, where trust is restored and accountability of the providers established.
Relevance to Internet Governance: Online hate speech can be identified as one of the growing threats to the global internet and its users. Hence, the urge to take an evidence-based approach to prevent and remediate online hate speech inevitable.
At the center of the debate is what the roles of government, the private sector and civil society respectively are when dealing with the challenge of hate speech online. Still, there are different views about who should be responsible to set the rules for keeping the internet free from harmful content.
That said, more than ever, the importance of establishing a multi-stakeholder dialogue between governmental, civil society organisations and industry is key to strengthen shared principles, norms, rules and decision-making processes to fight hate speech online.