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Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google were asked by the Home Affairs select committee why they did not police their content more effectively, given the billions they made.

They were told they had a “terrible reputation” for dealing with problems.

The firms said they worked hard to make sure freedom of expression was protected within the law.

‘Money out of hate’

Labour MP Chuka Umunna focused his questioning on Google-owned YouTube, which he accused of making money from “videos peddling hate” on its platform.

A recent investigation by the Times found adverts were appearing alongside content from supporters of extremist groups, making them around £6 per 1,000 viewers, as well as making money for the company.

Mr Umunna said: “Your operating profit in 2016 was $30.4bn.

“Now, there are not many business activities that somebody openly would have to come and admit… that they are making money and people who use their platform are making money out of hate.

“You, as an outfit, are not working nearly hard enough to deal with this.”

Peter Barron, vice president of communications and public affairs at Google Europe, told the committee the cash made from the videos in question was “very small amounts”, but added that the firm was “working very hard in this area” to stop it happening again.

Fellow committee member David Winnick said, when he heard Mr Barron’s answer, “the thought that came into my mind was the thought of commercial prostitution that you are engaged in,” adding: “I think that is a good and apt description.”

Yvette Cooper, who is chairwoman of the committee, turned her attention to Twitter.

Yvette Cooper read out abusive tweets from a user’s account to the committee.

Ms Cooper said she had personally reported a user who had tweeted a “series of racist, vile and violent attacks” against political figures such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, but the user had not been removed.

Nick Pickles, head of public policy and government for Twitter in the UK, said the company acknowledged it was “not doing a good enough job” at responding to reports from users.

“We don’t communicate with the users enough when they report something, we don’t keep people updated enough and we don’t communicate back enough when we do take action,” he said.

“I am sorry to hear those reports had not been looked at. We would have expected them to have been looked at certainly by the end of today, particularly for violent threats.”

When the BBC checked the account after the committee session, it had been suspended.

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Source: BBC

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The European Commission looked into whether the tech giants were meeting a pledge to remove hate speech within 24 hours of it being reported.

Only 40% of reports of hate speech are being removed within a day, it found.

The pledge was made in May when the firms signed up to a “code of conduct” brokered by the Commission.

“The last weeks and months have shown that social media companies need to live up to their important role and take up their share of responsibility when it comes to phenomena like online radicalisation, illegal hate speech or fake news,” said Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova in a statement.

Inciting hate
The research tracked what happened to 600 incidences of hate speech reported to the tech firms during a six-week period in October and November. The research covers that period because the monitoring system to track tech firms’ responsiveness was set up in early October.

Campaign groups and NGOs that monitor racist and fascist movements across Europe used the notification systems on the different social media networks to report these incidences and then tracked how long it took the tech firms to act.

Of the 600 reports, 270 were made to Facebook, 163 to Twitter, 123 to YouTube and none to Microsoft. The remainder, seven reports, were made to social media groups that had not signed up to the May pledge.

The Commission said the 600 reports were a sample of racist, sexist and misogynist content and did not represent all the examples of hate speech on the tech firms’ sites during the six-week study period.

About 20% of the messages seen were anti-Muslim and 23% were anti-semitic.

In 169 cases the content flagged as being hate speech was removed by the tech firms. YouTube removed 48.5% of the content reported to it, Facebook 28.3% and Twitter 19.1%.

In 40% of cases, reports were reviewed with 24 hours, found the research. In a further 43%, the reports were looked at within 48 hours.

“It is our duty to protect people in Europe from incitement to hatred and violence online,” said Ms Jourova. “While IT Companies are moving in the right direction, the first results show that the IT companies will need to do more to make it a success.”

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Source:BBC

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