The Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) published today a legal review of the draft Federal Act on Measures to Protect Users on Communications Platforms (Kommunikationsplattformen-Gesetz – KoPI-G) by the Republic of Austria. The review was officially submitted to the President of the National Council, Wolfgang Sobotka, and to the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria on 15 October 2020.
The Office of the OSCE RFoM commissioned an expert analysis prepared by Judit Bayer (Budapest Business School, University of Münster) and Jan Kalbhenn (University of Münster). The legal review analyses and compares the proposed law to OSCE commitments and examines it in the context of international standards on freedom of expression and media freedom.
As one of the main issues, the legal experts underline that it is not clear from the draft law how the access to legal remedy is guaranteed of users who had content from their accounts on communications platforms removed, as the complaint procedure does not entail an administrative decision that could be appealed against in court. They also recommend removing insult and blasphemy from the list of illegal content that must be removed by platform providers.
For the sake of legal security, the experts argue that there is room for improvement on the definition of platform providers. To better protect freedom of expression and the procedural rights of users, they recommend allowing more time for users who had content from their accounts on communications platforms removed to initiate a review procedure. Finally, the experts propose to regard the draft law as an opportunity to set out the substance and limits of the rights and duties of platforms towards their users: including respect for personal data and the obligation of neutrality towards opinions, which also entails the prohibition of discrimination among users and their content.
