9 Winter 2015-2016 The Working Group’s mandate was to develop recommendations for the most effective responses to antisemitism, and other forms of bigotry, online. Its membership includes representatives from the major social networks and internet industry, civil society, academia and the legal community. Meeting over the course of two years, the Working Group members have shared information, experiences and knowledge of the developing legal frameworks and court cases described above. Their work culminated in the publication of the Best Practices for Responding to Cyberhate, a set of best practices that both sides agreed to share. Since then, several of the major social networks have followed up the agreement, by inviting representatives of Jewish organizations, alongside police officers, prosecutors, and representatives of anti-racist NGOs to meetings at their European headquarters to discuss ways to reduce harmful content on their platforms, while respecting the free speech ethos that govern the Internet. An example of this determination to improve their service was Twitter ’s unveiling of a "Safety Centre" to improve reporting of, and action against, antisemitic messages, developed in conjunction with the Community Security Trust in the UK. Twitter, Facebook and Google have all responded to invitations to meet NGOs campaigning against cyber hate. Twitter and Facebook, for example, have sent senior representatives to meetings of the International Network against Cyber Hate (INACH). Facebook and Google sent senior representatives to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Global Forum Against Antisemitism in 2015, to explain their developing strategies. The latter two companies are also funding the Facing Facts project to develop online programs to assist civil society to monitor hate crime to criminal justice standards. Thus slowly but determinedly, the social networks are participating in a scheme to bridge the trans-Atlantic gap between the American stance which adheres closely to the First Amendment doctrine of free speech, and that of Europe which holds that free speech is not absolute and that those who incite hatred are to be held accountable to law. Conclusions Jews and Jewish communities are therefore afforded protection in law against antisemitic incitement as a consequence of European agreements, directives and cases settled before the ECtHR. The realization by the social networks that their platforms provide a vehicle for antisemitic incitement, as well as all the benefits that the Internet has brought, should also begin to strengthen that protective shield. The Additional Protocol to the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention requires that signatory states criminalize incitement to hatred and Holocaust denial; the Council Framework Decision has greater force, and EU Member States are now inspected to ensure that it is properly implemented, while the Framework Directive on Victims’ Rights reinforces existing measures, and Member States will again be inspected on its implementation. The interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights by the ECtHR criminalizes Holocaust denial, and has ruled that deniers cannot claim the right of free speech, nor can they seek to rehabilitate Nazism or Nazi ideology. However, European states have sometimes been reluctant to use the tools they have been provided with, and it is therefore the task of civil society, and Jewish communities to hold them to their responsibilities. This will become ever more vital as European populations react to economic decline and migration pressures, and turn to far right populism and other forms of extremism that appear to offer short term solutions. n Michael Whine MBE is Government and International Affairs Director at the Community Security Trust, and the UK Member of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) at the Council of Europe. He is also a member of the Hate Crime Independent Advisory Group at the UKMinistry of Justice.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=