EU justice ministers to discuss hate speech laws
EU Justice Ministers will hold an informal meeting in Brussels today to discuss three legal issues.
The first is technical and regards EU courts’ acceptance of electronic evidence. The other two focus on combating hate crimes and strengthening anti-discrimination policies in line with EU fundamental rights. Representatives from Google, Meta, and Twitter will also attend the meeting.
The meeting between the justice ministers and social media giants serves as a forum to discuss courts’ access to digital material and how to protect individuals from intolerance online. These issues epitomize the dilemmas of privacy versus security and censorship versus safety.
In recent years, EU courts have struggled to fight bigotry and intolerance online. On March 2nd, German courts rejected a domestic law that would regulate violent and sensitive content online as the proposed German law was incompatible with EU law.
Ministers have vowed to amend the EU’s stance on the issue by making hate speech a crime. While social media representatives will condemn hate speech in all forms, expect them to carefully stymie debate over restricting user content to prevent harmful content.
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