On March 29, 2018, eco presented its opinion to the European Commission on the recommendation for dealing with illegal online content.
Above all, eco criticizes the one-sided focus on large social networks, which totally disregards the reality and processes of small to medium-sized companies. Small hosting providers can hardly meet all measures proposed by the European Commission. To take this circumstance into account, the European Commission wants large and small providers to “share experiences, technological solutions and best practices to tackle illegal online content”. However, the recommendation does not address how this should be achieved, whether such an exchange is practical, or even feasible.
In addition, eco is critical towards the proposal to use systems for “the automatic detection and deletion” of illegal content in order to take “proportionate and specific proactive measures” for the removal of such content. Put simply, this means nothing other than the compulsory installation of upload filters.
The Internet industry is firmly against any binding regulation on upload filters. The use of proactive measures without cause is absolutely contrary to Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive, which exempts companies from their obligation to monitor and carry out active research.
Moreover, in case of child sexual abuse material and terrorism, they are not needed at all. Companies are already doing everything they can to remove such content from their platforms as quickly as possible. In most other cases, filter are not constructive because the potential illegality of the content may only arise from their context.
However, the recommendation does not address the issue of strengthening law enforcement. This was also criticized by eco.
On March 1, 2018, the European Commission published a recommendation on effective measures for dealing with illegal online content. In particular, it provides proposals on how to deal with terrorist content. The recommendation itself has no direct legal force, which means that EU member states would initially need to enact laws for its implementation.
