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European Commission - Speech - [Check Against Delivery] United Against Hate Speech on the Web: Where do we stand? - Speech by Commissioner Jourová at Conference with German Justice Minister Maas Berlin, 26 September 2016 Thank you, Minister Maas, for your welcoming words. Ladies and Gentlemen, Let me begin by expressing my appreciation for Minister Maas and the leadership role Germany has taken in tackling hatred online. The task force you set up in 2015, Minister Maas, is a precursor as well as an example. We have a problem. In recent years, we have seen messages of extremism and intolerance spread around the globe like wild fire. In today's digital world without borders, we need to stand united against this growing phenomenon. That's why the Commission this May agreed with major IT companies on a code of conduct to counter illegal hate speech online. Our commitment is to deliver change so that people do not need to live in fear and to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression, where European values and laws are respected. The spread of illegal hate speech online not only distresses the people it targets, it also affects those who speak up for freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination in our society. If left unattended, the fear of intimidation can keep opinion makers, journalists and citizens away from social media platforms. This in reality means a shrinking digital space for freedom of expression. We all know that hate speech often leads to hate crime. Let us remember the fate of MP Jo Cox who was brutally murdered earlier this year. In the aftermath of Brexit and the heated campaign against foreigners living in the UK, but also racist behaviour elsewhere, civil society and authorities observed a spike in hate crime of around 57%. "Toxic narratives" about migrants and religious minorities fuel not only fears and prejudices; they also fuel hatred against those who are perceived as foreigners. Free speech includes the right "to offend, to shock or to disturb the State or any part of the population". It does not include the right to incite violence and hatred. It does not include the right to attack someone on the street because they are Polish, German or any other nationality… I consider this an extremely serious threat that I also plan to raise with Justice Ministers at the upcoming Justice Ministers' Council in October. Responding to growing verbal and physical violence in Europe is a huge challenge. It calls for a cross-cutting approach bringing together education, citizenship, integration, social policies and law enforcement. My top priority is to ensure that the Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia is correctly translated into the national criminal codes and enforced, so that perpetrators of online hate speech are duly punished. Speech inciting violence or hatred is illegal. It is a crime. We all recognise and appreciate the power and the importance of the internet. But the Internet cannot be outside the rule of law. This is why I decided last year to work together with IT companies and NGOs as important allies in the fight against hate speech. And I was glad to see the internet companies taking a responsible role. The code of conduct we agreed in May is an innovative approach to address the issue. For IT companies, it means that notifications for removal of illegal hate speech have to be assessed and relevant action has to be taken, in the majority of cases, in less than 24 hours. This has to be checked not only against the companies' terms of service but also against the law. In many cases of online hate speech, notably those inciting violence, the course of action is obvious. And to tackle those rapidly will already make a huge difference. In other cases, however, it may be more difficult to decide whether a speech is illegal or not. There are already many areas where private companies, including IT companies, have to make difficult legal compliance decisions, such as tax, accountancy or workers' rights cases, and where they have to ensure that they have the necessary legal advice resources. Ensuring compliance with hate speech law is no different. In addition to managing online content, the code of conduct also addresses other important aspects. It seeks to enhance cooperation between IT companies, civil society and Member States. It aims at making the reporting online hate speech more effective. And it seeks to step up cooperation with civil society on counter-narratives – giving due space to the messages that oppose hate speech and respect our values. Signing the code of conduct was only the first step forward. We now have to implement it in an effective way. I am encouraged by the positive developments regarding reporting and by a closer collaboration between IT companies and civil society. This close cooperation will be key to make the code of conduct a success story. We are currently working with IT companies and civil society to develop a monitoring and reporting tool to assess how well the Code is applied. My aim is to have a continuous impact assessment and to collect concrete data. The experience of your Task Force on this, Minister Maas, would be most valuable to us in that regard. At EU level, we will have a first opportunity to report on the progress achieved at the High Level Working Group on Combating Racism, Xenophobia on 7 December. I will then report back to Justice Ministers at the December Council. After the preliminary assessment in December and observation of trends in following reporting rounds, we will be able to see if the code of conduct really works. If it does not work, I will not hesitate to go back to the College of Commissioners and see with them whether the self-regulatory path to address this problem is the best one. At Member State level, I invite Ministers to consider whether the full potential of national criminal and administrative law provisions, including those transposing the Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia has been fully explored. There is for sure a lot of work to be done. I count on your continued support so that together we put an end to hate crimes caused by illegal hate speech. Thank you.

For your consideration, "...that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing were inside jobs." Then this face immediately after that comment, only for a brief moment. This isn't about proving a conspiracy. It's about keeping her out of the White House. (video link: )

In a couple of days I'll be doing this little speech in front of an audience. It's a fortnightly event called the Village Circle that people in the local community here on the Gold Coast (queensland, australia) have organized. The kinds of people that have been coming might be said to have hippy-ish tendencies---into their organic food, permaculture, concerned about fluoride in their water, chemtrails, gmo-food, the general epic fail that is government, etc. (bit of a spiritual vibe in there too of course)... But I feel above all that they're just frustrated with the lack of any real solutions to the issues in our world.... It's only been happening for about 3 months so far, and I think we don't really know what we're doing, but it's a cool thing to be a part of and I'm looking forward to seeing how much philosophy I can inject into this space over time.... =)Each week there's someone from the community that speaks for about 40mins, then there's a raw vegan organic meal offered for $3 (that's probably less than cost price, most of the food being donated by local organic farms and made by volunteers)... Then the last 40mins or so people break up into groups they call 'solutions circles', these are more specific topics, so there's a permaculture group, an anti-fluoride group, there's a men's group that i've joined, a bunch of others...Anyway, though i've never done any public speaking, but I love these ideas that are the fdr conversation, self-knowledge/nap/rtr/upb, I love what fdr is about and I feel compelled to share this stuff!... So I just asked if I could speak for 5-10mins, told them it would be about communication and relationships and that's about it…So this is going to be fun =) It's awesome to be level 0 at something and begin the journey of progression…. Life: Next Chapter. <3-------I'll be saying something like this, I'd be very grateful for feedback from the fdr massive =)this is my first time doing any public speaking since high school… it's somewhat terrifying standing up here in front of you all, but i'm very passionate about these ideas i'm about to share with you and so, despite being ridiculously busy with the new business i've started with my beautiful partner, i decided to just go for it so here i am =)i've been coming to a bunch of these village circle meetings, and it's been so awesome to see people coming together to talk about such vital issues… in fact, it's awesome to see people come together to talk about anything that's not just sports or celebrities or politics or the weather---to talk about something real… so you guys are all awesome and thank you!…but i must confess that some of this stuff we talk about is really daunting for me, chemtrails, fluoride, GMO-food, vaccinations, ending the fed, oppressive governments all over the world, the monetary system, the encroaching police state, the fukushima meltdown---argh!, there's so much going on and even though i try and keep myself well-informed and especially with so much conflicting information, it's often hard to know just what what to think let alone what to do about it!….but i think all these topics have a common thread and that thread is 'freedom'… so tonight i'd just like to talk for a few minutes about an even more basic freedom, and maybe it's one of the most fundamental of all, and yet it's something that's attainable by all of us right now… that is the freedom to be honest, the freedom to have real and truly genuine one-on-one relationships…i mean, what use is getting the fluoride out of the water if we can't even have a real conversation with the ones we love ?...it's so important to be able to show our true selves to people, without masks, without walls, without telling them what we think they want to hear... just perfectly open communication channels such that we can explore ourselves and each other without fear...because i believe that honesty is intimacy… and that, in the absence of honesty, there can be no relationship but only fog and illusion…but with the ones we love, those people with whom we believe we have a deep and genuine relationship, if we can't be honest, then we have to ask ourselves why that is, what's stopping us…?are we afraid of how they'll react ?… afraid that they might judge us in some way ?… or maybe we know exactly how they'll react and we're avoiding that knowledge… maybe we're seeking comfort in the illusion…but that's not how i want to live, i want to live in reality...so tonight i just want to share something i've learned, it's like the ultimate way to discover if you have a real and genuine relationship with someone… the ultimate way to talk about something real…and that is simply to honestly report your feelings in the moment… i'll say that again… to honestly report your feelings in the moment… and that's it.so if you're feeling angry… you say "i'm feeling angry"… and that's it… but you say it without judgement, without assigning a cause, without demanding something be done about it… just say it in the spirit of honesty and vulnerability and from a place of curiosity, invite the other persons empathy and explore the emotion together…that's how we can gain objectivity on ourselves, that's how we can gain self-knowledge…because maybe the emotion is appropriate, maybe it's not… maybe they'll be surprised, maybe they knew it all along but were afraid to bring it up… maybe they'll be honoured that you'd share that with them, maybe they'll recognise the strength it took to be vulnerable in that way, to have shared your true self with them...i like to call this Real-time Relationships…and there's such immense power in this, because no one can ever challenge you on that, no one can dispute how you feel inside…and if the person you're talking to has empathy and is genuinely interested in you and your well-being they will be curious and ask why… they'll want to explore that emotion with you, discover where it comes from...i believe relationships are like celestial bodies orbiting one another… but there's no such thing as a stable orbit and either we're getting closer or we're drifting apart---and honesty brings us closer… in a universe of constant change there is no standing still, either we grow together or we grow apart… either we evolve or we dissolve…so it's a matter of putting your feelings out there, which can often be a scary thing, especially for us men who are so often taught that being "strong" means hiding our emotions… but that's wrong, hiding emotions is a weakness… and we should never need to hide our emotions from the one's we love…and it's so important to do this in the moment as the feelings begin to arise… because whatever we don't express will end up getting repressed and eventually, as time goes on and the pressure builds there'll be an emotional explosion which serves no one…of course, it's easy to tell someone you're feeling happy or feeling good… but to tell someone you're sad or depressed isn't so easy…carl jung wrote that "The foundation of all mental illness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering"…so don't hide your suffering, express it and experience it, set it free...and that's why it's so vital to teach children about emotions, particularly to give them names for emotions so that they can express their feelings with their words rather than having to act them out… give them the ability to tell us they're angry or frustrated instead of having to throw a tantrum...and sometimes we don't know how we're feeling, or we're confused or we don't know what to say… but this still applies… it's ok to say "i'm feeling confused", "i don't know what to say", "i'm scared", "i need help"… and then to be open and vulnerable enough to explore the reasons why…and of course all this comes back to the highest value, and that is self-knowledge… like the famous inscription in ancient greece at the oracle at delphi: "know thyself"…and that takes empathy and a deeper connection with ones' true self… who am i ?… how do i feel ? and why ?……finally let me just say that we don't owe everyone we meet total honesty and when the person at the checkout at the servo asks "how are you?", there's no obligation to be 100% honest….as my favourite living philosopher likes to say: "the truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs"but please, please, be honest with the ones you love, share with them your true self, remember that honesty is intimacy and it's the best and only way to grow together… have empathy and encourage it in others by being curious about them… and above all: know thyself.much love and thank you all ! =)