On 11 February 2020, when the whole world is commemorating Safer Internet Day, Lithuanian electronic information hosting service providers join The Memorandum on Clean Internet Environment and, thus, express intolerance to illegal and harmful for the minors information on their servers. The purpose of this initiative of Communications Regulatory Authority of the Republic of Lithuania (RRT) is to encourage the service providers follow the principles of accountability and efficiency when eliminating the forbidden content.
“In the course of the previous year, 2019, we have received almost a thousand notifications from Lithuanian internet users about illegal or harmful content, a certain part of which was published on Lithuanian servers. The laws of the Republic of Lithuania establish an obligation for the service providers to eliminate the illegal and harmful for minors content stored on their servers within a reasonable period of time indicated by RRT”, stated Ieva Žilionienė, the Deputy Director of RRT, who also highlighted that: “therefore, it is of utmost importance that such contents as sexual exploitation of children, violence, bullying, pornography would be eliminated as soon as possible or reported to the competent institutions for further investigation. The service providers, on the servers of which such information may be published by persons using their services, do realise this problem and appeal for safe and clean internet environment and join the Memorandum initiated by our authority”.
The Memorandum establishes an agreement regarding more efficient notice and take down notification procedures, when RRT notifies the service provider that information forbidden to be publicly announced is provided on the servers thereof, also regarding the actions, encouraging the information providers not to publish forbidden information, sharing best practices and knowledge, promoting hotline “Clean Internet” https://www.svarusinternetas.lt.
Currently The Memorandum on Clean Internet Environment has already been joined by UAB “BTT group”, UAB “Hostinger”, UAB “Baltnetos komunikacijos”, UAB “Cherry servers”, UAB “Blue Bridge”, LITNET KTU Technical Centre, UAB “Interneto vizija”. RRT invites other Lithuanian electronic information hosting service providers to join this initiative and to create an environment for cooperation by efficiently eliminating the illegal contents as well as to encourage their service users to be responsible and not publish any forbidden information on the internet. The providers can join this Memorandum by submitting a free form application to RRT.
In Lithuania internet information of the following types is considered illegal and harmful for minors:
– child sexual exploitation material;
– violence or bullying against persons;
– pornography;
– incitement of racial or ethnical hatred ;
– distribution of narcotic substances;
– illegal disclosure of the personal information.
During 2019 RRT internet hotline “Clean Internet” received 998 notifications about illegal or harmful content from internet users. Internet users are encouraged to submit notifications about illegal or harmful for the minors content, found on the internet, via the website https://svarusinternetas.lt/. There is also an opportunity to submit the notifications anonymously. Instructions on how to submit a notification on illegal or harmful for the minors content noticed on the internet as well as what is the further course of the investigation of the received notifications are shown in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXRBMU4sfOk.
About internet hotline “Clean internet”
The activity of internet hotline of Communications Regulatory Authority (RRT) is performed in Lithuania since 2007, in accordance with project financed by the European Union “Safer Internet”. Partners of the consortium of project “Safer Internet” are National Agency for Education, RRT, association “Langas į ateitį” and public institution “Child Line”. Along with the partners from public and private sector it implements various initiatives for encouraging the society to act on the internet more responsibly as well as prevents illegal and harmful content in the cyberspace. Currently there are 47 internet hotlines operating in 43 countries of the world, which are connected by international INHOPE association. RRT internet hotline is a member of INHOPE since 2008.
Updated on 2020-02-17