The availability and proliferation of illegal content online remains an important public policy and security concern in the EU, notably with regards to:
- the dissemination of terrorist content,
- illegal hate speech,
- child sexual abuse material, or
- illegal commercial practices and infringements of intellectual property rights,
- selling of illicit drugs,
- counterfeits or other illicit goods.
The Commission adopted on 28 September 2017 a Communication with guidance on the responsibilities of online service providers in respect of illegal content online and a Recommendation on measures to effectively tackle illegal content online on1 March 2018. The Commission has published an inception impact assessment and is collecting evidence on the effectiveness of measures and the scale of the problem.
The open public consultation will run from 30th April until the 25th June, to allow the Commission to thoroughly analyse the responses and additional evidence and explore, by the fourth quarter of 2018, further measures to improve the effectiveness of combating illegal content online.
The questionnaire is targeted to the general public, hosting service providers such as online platforms, organisations reporting the presence of illegal content online, competent authorities and law enforcement bodies, and academia, civil societies and other organisations. The answers to the consultation can be submitted in all EU languages.
Read more on the details of the consultation.
Related content
Consultation results | 12 Settembre 2018
The public consultation ran from 30th April to 25th June 2018 and aimed at informing the impact assessment, examining options for further measures to tackle illegal content online. The public consultation was accompanied by a series of other tools to gather stakeholder views, including targeted consultations and a Flash Eurobarometer survey building on a random sample of 33 244 respondents.