The Regulation of Online Hate Crime

The regulation of online hate crime in the UK has been successful. Recent attempts of the parliament to introduce the Online Harms White Paper have been plausible, by cohesively addressing elements causing online hate. The paper’s introduction to a statutory duty of care sets a comprehensive and rigorous standard for social media companies’ to follow, whilst ensuring overactive moderation doesn’t take place. However, the UK’s stance in relation to online hate vastly differs from international jurisdictions which is a deterrent to creating homogenous law governing multi-jurisdictional social media hate crime conflicts. This transpires in cases like Eva v Facebook Limited in relation to EU law requirements. In light of this case, Brexit is seen as a good step towards the UK having its own law for online hate as its law drastically conflicts with EU law. After careful consideration of regulation options for the UK, the co-regulatory approach is recommended as it maintains a degree of governmental oversight – although this will be likely eliminated with the current Ofcom deliberations. This should be applied to the UK’s legal architecture through a careful balance of reactive and proactive measures for moderating content