A/78/195 speech against minorities between 2014 and 2018 7 and antisemitic incidents in the United States at their highest ever recorded level. 8 In addition, while in a 2021 report it was stated that hate crimes against Muslims had peaked in 2017 across 29 States members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( A/HRC/46/30, para. 47), cases of Islamophobia are reported to be even higher in 2023 in many places. It should also be emphasized that antisemitism, Islamophobia and antiGypsyism all involve targeted minorities. Other minorities facing widespread hate speech on social media include Baha’is, Bengali, Dalits, Indigenous Peoples and Rohingya. 25. The results of the most recent seventh evaluation of the voluntary code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online, 9 overseen by the European Commission, show a similarly staggering decrease in the percentage of cases in which removal action was taken within 24 hours of notification, down from 90.4 per ce nt in 2020 to 81 per cent in 2021 and 64.4 per cent in 2022. Recently, a new European Union regulation on online content, the Digital Services Act, 10 entered into force on 16 November 2022. 26. Similarly, despite a number of meetings between the Special Rapporteur and the representatives of social media platforms, and despite the joint statement issued in 2019 when Microsoft, Meta (then known as “Facebook”, X (then known as “Twitter”), Google and Amazon committed to uphold the Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online, in which they stated that they would be resolute in their commitment to ensure they were doing all they could to fight the hatred that led to terrorist violence, most recent reports suggest that so cial media companies are generally failing to act on hate speech targeting minorities, as much as 89 per cent of the time in the case of anti-Muslim hate, 11 and at similar levels for other minorities, such as in the case of antisemitism and anti -Black racism. 27. Other initiatives have been adopted by various institutions to combat the scourge of hate, intolerance and even incitement to violence and genocide, including, at the global level, the United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech laun ched by the Secretary-General in 2019. It contains 13 commitments to action by the United Nations system, though most of these are limited to conducting more research, collecting data and raising awareness. 12 There is as of yet no significant focus on minorities, despite the fact that they are overwhelmingly the targets and victims of hate speech and hate crimes fuelled by social media platforms. 13 The Special Rapporteur’s main concerns and warnings therefore remain largely unaddressed. __________________ 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 8/21 Deepankar Basu, Dominance of Majoritarian Politics and Hate Crimes against Religious Minorities in India, 2009–2018, Working Paper Series, No. 493 (Political Economy Research Institute, 2019). Anti-Defamation League, Centre on Extremism, “Audit of antisemitic incidents 2022”, March 2023. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination/ racism-and-xenophobia/eu-code-conduct-countering-illegal-hate-speech-online_en. See https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digitalservices-act-ensuring-safe-and-accountable-online-environment_en. Centre for Countering Digital Hate, “Failure to protect: social media platforms are failing to act on anti-Muslim hate”, 28 April 2022. United Nations, United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech: Detailed Guidance on Implementation for United Nations Field Presences (2020). Another significant global initiative is the Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence (A/HRC/22/17/Add.4, annex, appendix) which 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. It is one of the few initiatives in which minorities are acknowledged and addressed specifically in more than just a superficial way. 23-15818