Tech Desk 
Jan 21, 2025
In the wake of hate speech becoming ubiquitous across social media platforms, top-of-the-line players including Meta’s Facebook, Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), Google’s YouTube and others have assured of a clampdown on hate speech.
The tech giants' latest offensive against content hurting people's religious, national or personal sentiments, including other forms of inappropriate content, comes in compliance with a new code of conduct, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), set to be made part of tech-related regulations imposed in the European Union (EU).
The European Commission confirmed on Monday that other notable tech titans among the firms that volunteered to participate in the newly devised social media rules in the EU are Dailymotion, Instagram, Jeuxvideo.com, LinkedIn, Microsoft hosted consumer services, Snapchat, Rakuten Viber, TikTok, and Twitch.
“In Europe there is no place for illegal hate, either offline or online. I welcome the stakeholders’ commitment to a strengthened Code of Conduct under the DSA,” EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.
The DSA makes it mandatory for big tech to eliminate harmful content across major social media platforms. It's worth noting that the updated Code of Conduct is also expected to amend how regulators implement the act.
As part of the revised code, social media giants vowed to allow not-for-profit or public entities —which specialise in addressing illegal hate speech— to surveil their manner of reviewing hate speech notices and to evaluate at least two-thirds of such notices received within 24 hours.
