Press release, Bratislava, 17 October 2022
To eliminate the negative impact of what is happening on social media and content-sharing platforms in the context of last week's shooting on Zámocká Street in Bratislava, the Council Media Services is carrying out a series of activities that enable it to implement the new Media Services Act. This legislation has expanded the Council's powers, particularly in the area of systemic oversight of the dissemination of information in the online space.
Immediately after the incident, the CMS launched social media monitoring aimed at searching for posts related to the topic, thus, among other things, continuously gaining insight into the actors reporting on the event with the most significant impact on the public debate. CMS detects posts containing hate speech against the LGBTI+ community and hateful or belittling comments through specialised technologies and reports them to the platforms given violations of the community rules of the networks. In doing so, it uses the standard content reporting mechanisms available to ordinary users and a special escalation channel just for the regulator. In this way, the Council monitors what is happening on Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube and selected websites.
At the same time, the Council implements activities aimed at limiting access to the shooter's manifesto, which is also freely disseminated through Slovak and foreign public document repositories. "Already on Friday, the manifesto was removed from the DocDroid and MediaFire repositories after our appeal. On Monday, it was also withdrawn by the Uloz.to and MEGA.nz services. We know that users are repeatedly uploading the document to these platforms; we are reporting every other captured occurrence. And we appeal to the public to report the availability of the manifesto to the Council if they have knowledge of it," said Luboš Kukliš, the director of the Council for Media Services. In addition to the withdrawal of extremist material, repositories respond to its reporting by, for example, terminating user accounts of users. At the same time, the New Zealand provider MEGA.nz informed the local authorities about the existence of the manifesto.
The Council's office also made intensive contact with the Twitter platform, where the attacker posted his plans, the manifesto and also informed of his decision to carry out the act. The aim is to obtain detailed information on the content of the attacker's profile and the platform's response. From the data obtained, the Council will prepare a detailed report on the attacker's behaviour on the Twitter platform and the actions taken by the platform in relation to their dissemination. This will be the basis for recommendations for further cooperation aimed at effectively preventing similar content and expression on Twitter in the future.
In the implementation of all the activities mentioned above, which the Council for Media Services is operationally expanding to include other necessary steps, it is actively cooperating with the Centre for Combating Hybrid Threats at the Ministry of the Interior, the relevant police forces and other relevant institutions and is fully available to all relevant entities within its legal competences.
MEDIA CONTACT
Mgr. Lucia Michelčíková, PhD.
HEAD OF COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT
+421 918 696 286
lucia.michelcikova@rpms.sk