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Zagreb - The Croatian Parliament's Committee on Information, Computerisation and Media on Wednesday called on providers of media services and electronic publications to adopt their own hate speech codes.
The Committee also concluded that hate speech should be systematically curbed by promoting media literacy among the public.
The two conclusions were adopted by a majority of votes, with Karolina Vidović Krišto, an independent MP affiliated with the Homeland Movement, voting against and Nino Raspudić of the Bridge party abstaining.
The Committee chair, Natalija Martincevic (The Reformists), said that the Committee's meeting was prompted by a recent shooting incident outside the government offices and by growing hate speech and radicalisation of society.
Martincevic said that the meeting preceded a parliamentary debate on a proposal to amend the Electronic Media Act to regulate the responsibility of editorially-led media. She noted that hate speech was particularly used in comments on social networks that are not subject to media laws.
The Minister of Culture and Media, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, said that the new Electronic Media Act would better regulate legal provisions relating to the media and editorial responsibility, but added that hate speech on social networks was a special problem.
"Social networks are currently not defined as media and are not covered by media laws," Obuljen Koržinek said, adding that the responsibility of social networks was defined by self-regulating acts of leading online platforms.
She highlighted the need to encourage media literacy and raise awareness among young people as the most effective way of combating hate speech in public discourse.