A/HRC/46/57 (c) The legislation in place to ensure that States comply with these international legal obligations. In addition to the general conditions of legality, legitimacy and necessity and proportionality, legislation to protect against all forms of hate speech must be carefully and narrowly tailored in order to restrict freedom of expression only to the extent permissible. Much existing hate speech laws are vague in ways that can be used, and indeed are used, to restrict the freedom of expression of minorities and human rights defenders, including by preventing them from expressing legitimate grievances. Vagueness can render legislation useless or even threaten freedom of expression unduly, leading to impermissible restrictions on freedom of expression by motivating social media platforms to remove content rather than risk a fine (a phenomenon known as “overblocking”); (d) The extent to which States prosecute breaches of permissible restrictions on freedom of expression in social and other media; (e) The legislation that States have in place to comply with their legal obligations to criminalize or prohibit impermissible harmful speech in social media, setting out the obligations, including potential financial liabilities, of owners of social media platforms. Such platforms constitute favourable ecosystems for the propagation of the most harmful forms of hate speech, including incitement to genocide and advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence; (f) The legislation in place requiring owners of social media platforms to adopt policies and protocols acknowledging and incorporating the fact that States have an obligation to prohibit the described illegal forms of harmful speech, and may legislate on others in accordance with international law. While social media platforms are private entities, such legislation is key as social media have become the main carriers of hate in the twentyfirst century, particularly against minorities; (g) The legislation in place requiring social media companies to manage hate speech on their platforms with reference to the human rights implications of their products. They must therefore have in place human rights review processes that refer to and focus specifically on the groups most susceptible to hate speech in the States concerned, and in particular minorities, women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities; (h) The transparency requirements in place, which must allow public oversight. Such requirements operate on two main levels: (i) in procedures and mechanisms within State agencies and social media platforms for the mandatory collection of data on incitement to genocide and advocacy that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence. States are required to ensure that such data are disaggregated according to the basis of the hatred, whether national, ethnic, racial or religious hatred, which all relate to vulnerable minorities, or hatred affecting other vulnerable groups, on the basis of such factors as gender and sexual orientation; and (ii) in measures to ensure the actual enforcement of legislation in place to deal with hate speech. 61. States may restrict the exercise of the right to freedom of expression under the third category only as provided by law – that is, where each of the above-mentioned specific issues is addressed – and only as necessary to address sufficient threats of harm to respect of the rights or reputations of others, or to protect national security, public order, or public health or morals. Restrictions on freedom of expression outside these types of harm is not permitted. 62. While it is often claimed that what constitutes impermissible is too uncertain or contextual, this is not altogether accurate. The Rabat Plan of Action includes a six-part threshold test for assessing the severity of hatred in expressions that could be judged to constitute illegal hate speech under international law. Similarly, principle 12 of the Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality provides clear and succinct legal definitions of the main relevant terms, including “hatred”, “advocacy” and “incitement”.11 63. Any limitations to freedom of expression must remain within the strictly defined parameters flowing from international human rights, in particular the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the International Convention on the 11 ARTICLE 19, The Camden Principles on Freedom of Expression and Equality, (London, 2009). 11