Facebook has launched a new initiative to crack down on hate speech and online extremism amid the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe, the company announced Monday.
The Online Civil Courage Initiative aims to empower users to effectively fight extremist views.
“In the past year, we’ve seen millions of people come together online to support refugees and stand in solidarity with the victims of terror attacks,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post Monday. “But we’ve also heard voices of hate growing louder. With extremism damaging lives and societies across the world, challenging those voices has never been more important.”
The company did not describe in detail what its plans were, but they appear to include funding powerful non-governmental organizations that are already involved in fighting radicalism and hate speech online.
Facebook’s partners are the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
To start, the group has pledged more than $1.09 million to support European non-governmental organizations and nonprofits already working on the topic. It will develop best practices for NGOs, governments and online services as well as fund research into the causes of violent extremism and hate speech.
“Deleting content won’t make the hatred go away,” Sandberg added. “We can’t just treat the symptoms — we have to treat the cause.”
“Deleting content won’t make the hatred go away,” Sandberg added. “We can’t just treat the symptoms — we have to treat the cause.”
According to Facebook’s official Help Center, the company considers hate speech to be “content that attacks people based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease.”
Over the past several years, advocacy groups have pushed the company to update its policies, while critics have argued the social network doesn’t do enough to enforce them.
Sandberg announced the new initiative on Monday during a press conference in Germany, a country where tackling anti-refugee rhetoric and xenophobia has taken center stage.
Last August, Germany’s minister of justice called on Facebook to remove racist posts targeting asylum seekers; three months later, prosecutors opened a criminal investigation on the suspicion that Facebook failed to take down a wave of anti-immigrant posts on the social network, inciting racial hatred.
German politicians and celebrities also voiced concern about rising hatred on social media, as nearly 1.1 million migrants and refugees entered the country in 2015 alone.
While Germany has been largely praised for its open-door policy regarding refugees, a survey conducted by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis last week highlighted a sudden negative shift in the German public’s views on foreigners, following a mass sex attack in the city of Cologne.
Following the terror attacks in Paris, the French government also called on Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google and Microsoft to combat extremist propaganda and expand safety tools in the event of a future attack.
“Hate speech has no place online — or in society,” Sandberg said. “Together, we can make sure the voices of peace, truth and tolerance are heard. Love is louder than hate.”
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Source: Mashable