Group Seeks Help From Social Networks to Combat Hate Speech
By: Larisa Epatko
Photo of a Facebook user by Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images.
Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter have helped users mobilize around a common cause like never before. But what if their message is one of hate?
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based group working against global racism, has compiled a list of hundreds of websites it deems hateful and is pushing their host sites to remove them. They range from a white supremacist motorcycle group's blog, to the sale of a Nazi-era ring on eBay.
The group's associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, recently spoke at a briefing on Capitol Hill, where he described the group's efforts and what they're up against.
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, said Cooper, many experts were concerned about U.S. homegrown militants -- such as neoNazis and KKK members -- adopting al-Qaida-like tactics, but instead al-Qaida has co-opted theirs by using the Internet to spread its message of violence and to recruit members. The ease of communication that the Internet brings is supplying groups seeking to do harm with a tool to inspire bad behavior in others, he said.
Cooper and his organization are hoping to convince social networks, which have their own guidelines and standards, to become more proactive in taking down objectionable content, rather than waiting for users to flag it.
Rick Eaton, senior researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Facebook personnel "do a pretty good job and are very receptive to our concerns," but they allow some sites like "F--- Religion" to stay if they consider it a "discussion." Twitter, on the other hand, has not agreed to a meeting with the center, he said, and continues to let troubling users have accounts, for example Jabhat al-Nusra, whom the State Department has identified as a terrorist front.
Facebook declined to be interviewed for this article and Twitter did not respond to our interview request.
Facebook has a page that explains how to report an objectionable page and what the company does in response. It also lists types of prohibited content, such as threats to public safety and pornography, that it can remove.
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Group Seeks Help From Social Networks to Combat Hate Speech