Net Neutrality Indicates a Functioning Democracy
29 April 2016ISPA celebrates 20 years of Internet industry activism on 6 June 2016
6 June 20165 May 2016
No South African has to tolerate hate. This basic tenet of civilised society is applicable now more than ever as the country explores ways to battle racism, xenophobia and other forms of hate speech. In the online environment, we have a useful tool in the take-down procedure of South Africa’s Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA).
“It is pertinent to remind South Africans of this valuable tool as government prepares to introduce hate crimes legislation into Parliament, which will include a specific focus on hate speech,” said ISPA chair, Graham Beneke.
Hate speech is usually defined as speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on their race, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability. ISPA currently has 180 Internet Service Provider (ISP) members.
“Should a member of the public discover online content believed to be unlawful, a request to remove, or take-down, the material can be submitted to ISPA as long as the content is hosted locally by an ISPA member,” explained Mr Beneke.
Legislation sets out the specific requirements for a take-down notification to be delivered to an ISP. This includes the provision of information identifying the content that is the subject of the complaint and the manner in which it infringes the rights of the person complaining. The complainant must also confirm that the take down request is being made in good faith.
Under section 77(2) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, any person who lodges a notification of unlawful activity knowing that it misrepresents the facts, is liable for damages for wrongful take-down.
Upon receipt of a take-down request, ISPA will confirm that all of the required information is included, that the content referred to is hosted on an ISPA member’s network and that the remedial action requested is feasible. If the request passes these tests, it will be forwarded to the relevant ISP which must then make a decision on whether to comply with the request, usually in consultation with its affected customer.
During 2015, 236 takedown notifications were lodged with ISPA. Half of these could not be accepted for various reasons which included that the content had already been removed, the request was defective or the target ISP was not an ISPA member. Of the remaining 118 notifications, 111 resulted in content being removed while 7 were refused.
Interestingly, the majority of the valid notifications related to copyright or trademark infringement (73), while 28 involved alleged fraud, malware or phishing. Seventeen notifications alleged content which was defamatory or constituted harassment or hate speech or which amounted to an unlawful invasion of privacy.
“ISPA has spent the better part of two decades refining the take-down procedure so that is now more efficient and effective than ever. While this process is not the whole answer to hate speech online, it can be very useful in removing offending content quickly and without the need to incur overwhelming legal expenses ” said Mr Beneke.
“However, it is important to realise that this is remedy is limited to locally-hosted content and that it therefore cannot be applied to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter”, concluded Mr Beneke.
More information on the take-down procedure is available here: https://2026.ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/take-down-guide/. The form to request the take-down of content is available from https://2026.ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct/request-a-take-down/.
