A/HRC/37/77 violence and assistance to racist activities. Member States were also mandated to declare racist organizations illegal and prohibit the formation of such organizations. 60. On the qualification of dissemination and incitement as offences punishable by law, the Committee had agreed that the following contextual factors should be taken into account: the content and form of speech; the economic, social and political climate prevalent at the time the speech was made and disseminated; the position or status of the speaker in society and the audience to which the speech was directed; the reach of the speech; and the objectives of the speech. 61. Finally, Mr. Thornberry recalled article 7 of the Convention, in which the positive contribution of teaching, education, culture and information to combat racist hate speech was asserted. 62. Ms. Mercadé focused on the efforts of the European Union in combating hate speech online. She noted that the European Union framework decision on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law criminalized hate speech and hate crime in all member States and that the European Commission had the role of aiding national authorities to effectively implement European Union legislation to combat racism and xenophobia. 63. Ms. Mercadé also noted that the European Union had held its first annual colloquium on fundamental human rights in 2015, at which the focus had been on preventing and combating anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim hatred in Europe. One of the main conclusions of the colloquium had been that the dissemination of hate speech on the Internet and social media had become an increasing concern and that the fight against hate speech required the cooperation of information technology (IT) companies, civil society and the media. As a result, the European Commission had started a dialogue with four major IT companies, namely Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, together with member States and civil society organizations, which in 2016 had led to the adoption of a code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online. 64. Ms. Mercadé explained that the code of conduct was a set of voluntary commitments for IT companies, which requested that they first of all assess, within a period of 24 hours, the content they had received from users and trusted flaggers, according to national and European Union law on hate speech, and remove that content if necessary. They should also dedicate enough resources to establish a sufficiently large network of trusted flaggers (i.e. specialist NGOs that used special channels to report hate speech) to increase the speed at which content was assessed. 65. Mr. Roth-Fichet, referred to general recommendation No. 15 (1993) on article 4 of the Convention of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which focused on how to combat hate speech effectively. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance regarded hate speech as an extreme form of intolerance, which, if unaddressed, could be the precursor to violent hate crimes. Since 2013, therefore, the Commission had focused its attention on hate speech. 66. He stressed that general recommendation No. 15 did not infringe on the right of freedom of opinion or expression but that conversely, it reaffirmed the fundamental importance of freedom of speech, tolerance and respect for the equal dignity of all human beings and for a democratic and pluralistic society. In recommendation No. 15, the Committee noted that freedom of expression and opinion was not an unqualified right and that it must not be exercised in a manner inconsistent with the rights of others. 67. Mr. Roth-Fichet noted that in general recommendation No. 15 the Committee had proposed that Member States raise awareness of the dangers of hate speech by, for example, developing specific educational programmes. 68. Ms. Del Pino Pacheco acknowledged that intersectionality was a challenge for all States, in particular in constructing specific responses, which comprehensively met that challenge. She called on Member States to adopt policies and programmes which would combat the incitement to hate speech or to racist hatred, both through public initiatives or the media, in particular on the Internet. 9