Hate speech in the online environment needs to be addressed with a regional initiative
Representatives of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media participated in the 12th Annual Meeting of the Black Sea Broadcasting Regulatory Authorities Forum (BRAF) held in Albania from 16 to 18 September, the main topic of which were hate speech and freedom of information in audiovisual media and on online platforms.
The participants agreed that cooperation at the regional level is needed in order to combat more efficiently hate speech in the online environment, which would contribute to a faster reaction of online platforms in the case of harmful content.
The public discourse in online media, which evokes the deepest emotions in users, has accelerated the spreading of hate speech, thus steering the manner of communication in the media ecosystem, as concluded by the participants of the BRAF meeting.
The interlocutors on this topic were the hosts of the meeting from Albania, together with colleagues from Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Armenia, Moldova and Turkey, which agreed that this topic is relevant in all societies, as well as all forms of communication and information.
It was particularly pointed out that this topic is very important in regulating online content, which is not legally regulated in most countries of the Forum or the regulation of this area has started only recently.
