Today, Tuesday, the Complaints Office of eco –Association of the Internet Industry is presenting its annual report for the year 2021.
With 8,613 actionable cases, the eco Complaints Office has recorded a new high of notified legal violations on the Internet. This constitutes a rise of approximately 50 percent compared to the previous year.
Depictions of abuse of children made up the majority of actionable complaints
Depictions of sexual violence against children and young people continued to account for the largest share of these complaints (6,851 cases). Accordingly, the number of actionable reports on depictions of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of minors also increased by about 47 percent in 2021.
“As sad and distressing as these increases are, especially concerning depictions of abuse of young people, they also show that our society is becoming more and more vigilant and is clearly acting against illegal content,” says Head of the eco Complaints Office Alexandra Koch-Skiba. “The core message of our Complaints Office has resonated with people: Everyone can report illegal internet content and thus actively contribute to its take-down as well as its prosecution.”
Depictions of abuse were able to be taken down in 98 percent of cases worldwide
In close cooperation with its network partners, in 2021 the eco Complaints Office was able to achieve important successes: Within Germany, 100 percent of hosted websites with depictions of sexual abuse were taken down within an average of 2.65 days. Worldwide, such content was removed in less than a week and with a success rate of approximately 98 percent.
“Depictions of abuse and other illegal content were taken down quickly and efficiently in 2021 – and this functioned on a worldwide basis, despite some considerable challenges brought about by different legal situations in individual countries,” Koch-Skiba goes on to say. “This shows that self-regulation also works internationally.” In this respect, it is worth noting that only one fifth of the reported URLs were hosted in Germany.
How citizens can report illegal Internet content
Last year, the eco Complaints Office received a total of 25,775 complaints about Internet content which was potentially illegal or relevant to the protection of minors. A good third of the citizens provided contact details. Approximately 45 percent submitted the complaints anonymously, representing an increase of about 20 percentage points.
Illegal Internet content can be reported to the eco Complaints Office here.
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