Taking hate offline

Some European members of Parliament have submitted a draft declaration to the European Parliament requiring ISPs to take action against online hate speech. It calls on ISPs to better monitor the content of the sites they host in order to keep hate speech off the web. Those sponsoring the declaration would like to see racism and hate speech banished from the Internet completely and they believe that Europe should lead this initiative. If ISPs do not go along, the MPs will try to get the European Commission to enact legislation on the issue, reports Heise Online.
Currently, the EU runs the Safer Internet Plus program, which intends to „promote safer use of the Internet“ while fighting against „illegal content and content unwanted by“ end users. The MPs are calling on the EC to act within that framework to force ISPs to take hate speech and racist web sites online. However, the MPs efforts to ban hate speech face the same fundamental obstacles that other legislative efforts face when attempting to govern content on the Internet, reports Eric Bangeman of Ars Technica, “For everything from hate speech to digital piracy, the Internet’s carefully designed lack of respect for international borders always thwarts efforts to eradicate certain types of content from the ‚Net as a whole.”

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