22. 05. 2013

DEGERT: MEDIA TO STOP SPREADING HATE SPEECH

Belgrade, May 22, 2013 (Beta) - It is necessary to establish the regulatory bodies and appropriate legal framework to reduce hate speech in the internet media, the Head of EU Delegation to Serbia Vincent Degert said today at the panel discussion on the hate speech and internet.

The representatives of the OSCE Mission to Serbia and UNESCO also drew attention of the public to the same need. The Research conducted by the Faculty of Philosophy from Novi Sad demonstrated that the hate speech was present in the comments on internet more than in news posted on internet by media. According to the data of this faculty and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, around three million people use internet to read news. Almost 80 percent of young people uses internet on a daily basis, out of which one fourth was at some point violated.

"The adoption of the set of media laws will most likely cause media to be more responsible in using and placing information on internet", Degert said at the panel discussion "Hate Speech on the Internet".

He said that currently, the hate speech was at the level of an incident rather than practice.

Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia Peter Burkhard said that "Serbia did not need hammer, but scalpel" in order to solve problem of hate speech in media on the internet.

Representative of UN organization for education, science and culture UNESCO Adeline Hulin said that it was necessary to establish mechanism of self-regulation and standards, to stop spreading the hate speech.

"Media must respect the standards and the code of ethics that regulates their conduct", Hulin said.

State Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and Sports Nenad Borovcanin said that being a member of a sexual, religious, national, but most of all, soccer club supporters' groups was the grounds for discrimination of young people.