The sociocultural basket
creator has blurred. Internet users can create large portions of Web content, such as blog posts, YouTube videos, and photo galleries. Identifying, filtering, and labelling ‘improper’ websites is becoming increasingly difficult. While automatic filtering techniques already exist, automatic recognition, filtering, and labelling of visual content does not occur; yet research is underway.31 One approach, used on a few occasions by Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey, and Tunisia, is to block access to YouTube throughout the country. This maximalist approach, however, results in unobjectionable content, including educational material, being blocked. During the Arab Spring events, governments took the extreme measure of cutting Internet access completely in order to hinder communication via social network platforms.32 The need for an appropriate legal framework The legal vacuum in the field of content policy provides governments with high levels of discretion in deciding what content should be blocked. Since content policy is a sensitive issue for every society, the adoption of legal instruments is vital. National regulation in the field of content policy may provide better protection for human rights and resolve the sometimes ambiguous roles of ISPs, enforcement agencies, and other players. In recent years, many countries have introduced content policy legislation. International initiatives At international level, the main initiatives arise in European countries with strong legislation in the field of hate speech, including anti-racism and anti-Semitism. European regional institutions have attempted to impose these rules on cyberspace. The primary legal instrument addressing the issue of content is the CoE Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime,33 concerning the criminalisation of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems (2003). On a more practical level, the EU introduced the EU Safer Internet Programme which includes the following main points: P
Setting up a European network of hotlines to report illegal content.
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Encouraging self-regulation.
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Developing software and services.
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Developing content rating, filtering, and benchmark filtering. Raising awareness of the safer use of the Internet.34
The Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is also active in this field. Since 2003, it has organised a number of conferences and 157