Excerpt:
On March 1, The European Commission -- the unelected executive branch of the European Union -- told social media companies to remove illegal online terrorist content within an hour, or risk facing EU-wide legislation on the topic. The ultimatum was part of a new set of recommendations that will apply to all forms of “illegal content” online, “from terrorist content, incitement to hatred and violence, child sexual abuse material, counterfeit products and copyright infringement.”
The European Commission said, “Considering that terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours of its appearance online, all companies should remove such content within one hour from its referral as a general rule”.
While the one-hour ultimatum is ostensibly only about terrorist content, this is how the European Commission motivated the new recommendations: