Facebook has begun a Europe-wide campaign to curb extremist and racist posts on social media after concerns were raised by German politicians about a rise in these types of posts linked to the recent increase in refugees entering the country.
According to Reuters, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said that hate speech ‘has no place in our society. Facebook is not a place for the dissemination of hate speech or incitement to violence. With this new initiative, we can better understand the challenges of extremist statements on the internet and better respond to it.’
The company has hired a publisher Bertelsmann to monitor and delete racist or offensive posts coming from Germany and have invested money into the scheme to try and curb comments which may incite hatred.
The country is dealing with a massive influx of refugees, which hit 1.1 million people in 2015 alone.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Facebook to do more, and the Justice Ministry set up a task force with Facebook and other social networks and Internet service providers with the aim of identifying criminal posts more quickly and taking them down.
