14 DAY TRIAL // The European Union has had it with hate speech and plans to force Facebook, YouTube and other social networks to remove toxic content if they don't do it by free will.
This week, the European Union approved a proposal to implement the first mandatory social media restrictions. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are just some of the companies that would have to comply with these new restrictions which would see them blocking videos that incite hatred or promote terrorism.
While the proposal has passed with ease, the new regulations need to get to a final form before passing the European Parliament in order to become official.
The European Union has a pretty standard approach to social media and people's freedom of speech. With everything that has happened in recent years, however, it seems they're starting to draw the line at hate speech.
The regulations the EU plans to impose on social media sites apply to recorded videos and not live streamed content, so at the very least, they're being realistic about what companies can and cannot do when reacting to content shared by billions of users.
On the other hand, this will be seen as an effort to put restrictions on people's freedom of speech.
Unkept promises
For their part, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other companies have already embarked in an effort to clean up their platforms specifically of this type of content. Facebook, for instance, has announced it will hire a few thousand people to help with the efforts to properly review content being shared on the platform.
Nevertheless, the EU believes that all these companies have failed to deliver on a promise to remove content that was flagged as hateful within 24 hours, which is part of why they're working on new legislation. While the promises were nice, the EU wants to see actual action being taken