---

CoE rights chief warns on ‘retreat from facts’

The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights has warned social-media platforms that they must not “retreat from facts”.

Irish lawyer Michael O’Flaherty was responding to a recent announcement from Facebook owner Meta about changes to its fact-checking policies, replacing third-party fact-checkers with user-written ‘community notes’.

Meta’s measures, which follow similar moves by X, “may have adverse implications for human rights,” the commissioner said.

Risk of ‘vacuum’

He added that platforms risked creating “a vacuum where disinformation thrives unchecked and the harm to democracy is deep”.

O’Flaherty said that the “fundamental tension” between curbing harmful speech and safeguarding freedom of expression was not new, but had taken on greater urgency.

“Harmful speech can spread faster than corrections, and content-shaping algorithms often amplify the most polarising messages,” he stated.

O’Flaherty stressed that combating falsehoods and preventing the spread of hateful or violent messages was not censorship. “It is a commitment to protecting human rights,” he said.

“As reflected by the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, respect for individual’s dignity is the foundation of a democratic, pluralistic society,” O’Flaherty continued.

“Therefore, states can limit or prevent speech that spreads or supports hatred based on intolerance, as long as interferences are proportionate to the legitimate aim,” he added.

Legal standards

The commissioner also pointed out that the prevention of harmful speech was also enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

He urged Council of Europe member states to “redouble their efforts and demonstrate principled leadership” in enforcing these legal standards, adding that this included greater transparency in content-moderation practices.

“At the same time, state measures must remain grounded in international human-rights norms to prevent overreach that could stifle legitimate expression,” he added.