EU Governments Agree on Negotiating Stance on Online Terrorist Content

EU governments agreed on a position on rules against online terrorist content, the EU Council said Thursday. The proposed rules apply to all hosting service providers that offer services there. Providers would have to take down terrorist content or disable access to it within one hour from receiving an order from authorities or face potential penalties of up to 4 percent of global revenue for the previous year. They would have a duty of care to prevent dissemination of terrorist content on their sites, and would have to take measures to prevent previously removed content from reappearing. The European Parliament must now adopt its own position before negotiations with the Council can begin. Industry is concerned, the Computer & Communications Industry Association and eight other groups said in a Tuesday letter to European justice and home affairs ministers. They recommended cloud services be excluded and asked that provisions requiring hosting service providers to monitor and filter data be stricken. "This last requirement, coupled with unworkable deadlines and high penalties, would lead to numerous removals by strongly incentivising hosting service providers to suppress potentially legal content," said the signatories, including the European Internet Services Providers Association, BSA|The Software Alliance, DigitalEurope and online platform industry trade association EDiMA. CCIA Europe Senior Policy Manager Maud Sacquet Thursday urged EU lawmakers to ensure their approach is "effective, proportionate and compliant with fundamental rights."