22 | 05 | 2018

Public Consultation of the European Commission on the Fight against Illegal Content Online Is Open

Illustration: Approved by the European Commission

The European Commission opened a public consultation on improving the effectiveness of the fight against illegal content online. With this public consultation, the Commission aims at collecting standpoints of all relevant stakeholders so that the questionnaire is targeted both for the general public and online hosting service providers (such as internet platforms), competent authorities and particularly law enforcement bodies, academic community, civil society organisations and other relevant stakeholders.

The availability and proliferation of illegal content online remains an important public policy and security concern in the EU. In particular, there are still concerns regarding the dissemination of terrorist content online, as well as of that of illegal hate speech, illegal commercial practices, infringements of intellectual property rights, selling of illicit drugs, counterfeits or other illicit goods and other illegal activities.

On 28 September 2017, the Commission adopted a Communication with guidance on the responsibilities of online service providers in respect of illegal content online, followed by a Recommendation on measures to effectively tackle illegal content online on 1 March 2018.

With opening of this public consultation, the Commission aims to gather evidence on the scale of aforementioned issues and on the effectiveness of available measures; by the end of 2018, the Commission will explore further measures to improve the effectiveness of combating illegal content online.

The questionnaire to be filled in within public consultation is available in Croatian as well and accessible via this link.

Public consultation is open until 25 June 2018.