Getting Illegal Content Offline Fast

For all the boundless potential and opportunities that the Internet offers, there is also the dark side to the web. Given the borderless nature of the Internet, cross-border, transnational cooperation is vital to keep user data secure, but also to keep users themselves safe. The ongoing fight against illegal content in the Internet requires just such cooperation between the public, content analysts, industry players like Internet service providers and content delivery networks, and law enforcement. While complaints hotlines around the world deal with a whole range of different types of illegal content, probably their most important, and most personally challenging work is dealing with images of child sexual abuse. dotmagazine spoke to Alexandra Koch-Skiba, Head of the eco Complaints Office, on her team’s valuable contribution to the fight against such material.

Listen to the interview above, read the transcript, download the audio it for later, or jump to the individual questions here:

1. What exactly does the eco Complaints Office do?
2. What are the most difficult types of reports to deal with, and what makes them difficult?
   
3. Processing complaints of illegal content is in some situations a very difficult task. How do you keep your staff from becoming too heavily burdened by this?
   
4. There has been a lot of talk about hate speech in the last couple of years. What measures are you involved in for dealing with hate speech?
   
5. What kinds of law enforcement agencies does the Complaints Office cooperate directly with? Which other ones perhaps more indirectly?
   
6. The Internet is a global infrastructure, and content could be hosted anywhere. How do you go about dealing with cross-border issues, either within or outside of the EU?
   
7. The Complaints Office is a member of the INHOPE network. Can you tell us a bit about the INHOPE network itself and how it functions?
   
8. The eco Complaints Office is based on the concept of the self-regulation of the Internet. How important in your eyes is the self-regulation of the Internet?
   

Find more information about the eco Complaints Office on eco International.