Fighting against hate, extremism and polarisation

The EU is founded on values such as respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights. All forms of hatred and intolerance are incompatible with these fundamental rights and values. Hatred not only affects the individual victims, it represents a threat to vibrant democracies and a pluralistic society. Hate motivated crime and speech are ille

On Monday 13 November 2023, the Civil Liberties committee endorsed the draft report asking for progress on adding hate speech and hate crime to the list of EU crimes.

In recent times, the European Union (EU) has witnessed a sharp rise in hate speech and hate crime, yet EU law criminalises such conduct only if related to a limited set of protected characteristics, such as race and ethnicity. The Commission, with the support of the Parliament, seeks to address this limitation by extending the list of 'EU crimes' included in Article 83 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), to cover hate speech and hate crime. This can only be done by a Council decision adopted by unanimity, with the Parliament's consent.

The study argues that hate speech and hate crimes poison societies by threatening individual rights, human dignity and equality, reinforcing tensions between social groups, disturbing public peace and public order, and jeopardising peaceful coexistence. The lack of adequate means of prevention and response violates values enshrined in Article 2 of the TEU. Member States have diverging rules, and national public administrations are torn by disagreement in values. Therefore, EU regulation is needed to reinforce the existing standards and take measures to counter hate speech and counter-act against hate speech and hate crime. The study – on the basis of a cross-country comparison conducted – proposes concrete, enforceable and systematic soft and hard law measures to counter hate speech and hate crimes EU-wide efficiently.

This study, looks into the phenomenon of cyber violence and hate speech online against women in the European Union. After reviewing existing definitions of the different forms of cyber violence, the study assesses the root causes and impact of online violence on women. It continues by analysing and mapping the prevalence, victims and perpetrators. The document ends with an outline of the existing legal framework and recommendations for action within the EU remit.

In this paper, we present , an intelligent system currently being used by the Spanish National Office Against Hate Crimes of the Spanish State Secretariat for Security that identifies and monitors the evolution of hate speech in Twitter.

Departing from Jessie Daniels’s 2013 review of scholarship on race and racism online, this article maps and discusses recent developments in the study of racism and hate speech in the subfield of social media research.

This chapter examines the state of the literature–including scientific research, legal scholarship, and policy reports–on online hate speech. In particular it explores ongoing debates and limitations in current approaches to defining and detecting online hate speech; provides an overview of what social media data and surveys can tell us about the producers, targets, and overall prevalence of harmful language; reviews empirical evidence of the offline consequences of online hate speech; and offers quantitative insights into what interventions might be most effective in combating harmful rhetoric online.

Hate speech, whether online or offline, poses a threat to democracy and human rights. To address it constitutes an urgent challenge in all Council of Europe member States.