Description: Participants: - Gerd Billen, State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (confirmed) - David Kaye, UC Irvine School of Law, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (t.b.c) - Karine Nahon, Associate Professor, The Information School at University of Washington and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya (Israel) (t.b.c.) - Chan-jo Jun, Specialist lawyer for IT law (confirmed) - Ingrid Brodnig, author, activist and Journalist (confirmed) The workshop will begin with a presentation by attorney Chan-jo Jun, who rose to fame by supporting victims of hate speech online and instigating legal proceedings against Facebook. The other speakers will then have the opportunity to share perceived similar and/or different situations. The representative of the German government will then give a short overview about the Network Enforcement Act, and explain the reasons why the German Parliament passed the law, which introduced compliance obligations for social networks when dealing with complaints about illegal content online (Gerd Billen). The other participants will be asked to discuss other available instruments and strategies to fight harmful content. In particular, discussions will focus on what safeguards should be applied to secure freedom of speech (esp. David Kaye). Finally, it will be debated how chances stand to develop internationally accepted standards on how to deal with harmful content. During the workshop the audience will continuously have the opportunity to share their views and ask questions.
Expected Outcomes: A possible outcome could be the conclusion that it is a joint responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure a free and safe Internet from which harmful content is removed swiftly and effectively. However there will remain different opinions on what instrument will be the most appropriate to reach this aim. Nevertheless it should become clearer what is understood by harmful content and that there should be certain limits for the removal of content in order to preserve freedom of speech.