Facebook, Google and other US internet giants have sharply boosted efforts to clamp down on online hate speech, a top European Union official said Thursday. “The companies are now removing twice as many cases of illegal hate speech and at a faster rate when compared to six months ago,” Vera Jourova, the EU commissioner for justice, said in the first annual progress report. Facebook was the only one of the four giants – the other two are Microsoft and YouTube – to review and act on most hate speech notifications within 24 hours, she added. Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google’s YouTube announced a code of conduct in May last year, pledging to remove online hate speech within 24 hours of being notified. A year on, a recent survey of 24 EU countries showed that on average, in 59 percent of cases, internet firms responded to notifications of illegal hate speech by removing the content.

Source: Dhaka Tribune June 01, 2017 14:48 UTC