The Conference in Vienna on 13 October, entitled “The roles and responsibilities of internet intermediaries”, has gathered genuinely multi-stakeholder audience with representatives of all key stakeholder groups (governments, businesses, NGOs and the academic community) being present and actively engaged in discussions.

Setting the background for the exchanges to follow, in his opening address Jan Kleijssen, Director of the CoE Information Society and Action against Crime Directorate, said: “There are certain functions that are the ultimate prerogative of states, but internet companies do have a role to play based on clear, foreseeable and proportionate rules that fully comply with human rights, the rule of law and democratic values. Global influence brings global responsibilities for internet companies but they should not replace parliaments or courts”. The conference further saw very high quality debates, in particular on the very concrete topic of how Facebook moderates content online and to what extent the term ‘self-regulation’ implies delegation of law enforcement authority from public to private actors. Based on the preceding discussions, the concluding panel offered a variety of recommendations, some rather insightful and deserving further consideration.

Conference page

Opening address by Mr Jan Kleijssen, Director of Information Society and Action against Crime Directorate

Concept paper and programme

Video recording

Photos