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Social media giants Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have once again been accused of taking a \u201claissez-faire approach\u201d to moderating hate speech content on their platforms.<\/p>\n
This follows a stepping up of\u00a0political\u00a0rhetoric against social platforms in recent months in the UK, following a terror attack in London in March<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 after which\u00a0Home Secretary Amber Rudd called for tech firms to do more<\/a> to help block the spread of terrorist content online.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0highly critical report<\/a>\u00a0looking at the spread of hate, abuse and extremism on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter,\u00a0a\u00a0UK parliamentary committee\u00a0has\u00a0suggested the government looks at imposing fines on social media forms for content moderation failures.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also calling for a review of existing legislation to ensure clarity about how the law applies in this area.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content. There are too many examples of social media companies being made aware of illegal material yet failing to remove it, or to do so in a timely way. We recommend that the government consult on a system of escalating sanctions to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict timeframe,\u201d the committee\u00a0writes in the report.<\/p>\n Last month<\/a>, the\u00a0German government backed a draft law which includes\u00a0proposals to fine social media firms up to \u20ac50 million if they fail to remove illegal hate speech within 24 hours after a complaint is made.<\/p>\n A\u00a0Europe Union-wide Code of Conduct on swiftly removing hate speech, which\u00a0was agreed between the Commission and social media giants a year ago<\/a>,\u00a0does not include any financial penalties for failure \u2014 but there are signs\u00a0some European governments are becoming convinced of the\u00a0need to\u00a0legislate to\u00a0force\u00a0social media companies to improve their content moderation practices.<\/p>\n The UK Home Affairs committee report describes it as \u201cshockingly easy\u201d to find examples of material intended to stir up hatred against ethnic minorities on all three of the social media platforms it looked at for the report.<\/p>\n It\u00a0urges social media companies to introduce \u201cclear and well-funded arrangements for proactively identifying and removing illegal content \u2014 particularly dangerous terrorist content or material related to online child abuse\u201d, calling for similar co-operation and investment to combat extremist content as the tech giants have already put into collaborating to\u00a0tackle the spread of child abuse imagery online.<\/p>\n The committee\u2019s\u00a0investigation, which started in July last year following the murder of a UK MP by a far right extremist, was intended to be more wide-ranging. However, because the\u00a0work was cut short by the UK government\u00a0calling an early general election the committee says it has\u00a0published\u00a0specific\u00a0findings on how\u00a0social media companies are\u00a0addressing hate crime and illegal content online\u00a0\u2014 having taken\u00a0evidence for this from Facebook, Google and Twitter.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very clear to us from the evidence we have received that nowhere near enough is being done. The biggest and richest social media companies are shamefully far from taking sufficient action to tackle illegal and dangerous content, to implement proper community standards or to keep their users safe. Given their immense size, resources and global reach, it is completely irresponsible of them to fail to abide by the law, and to keep their users and others safe,\u201d it writes.<\/p>\n \u201cIf social media companies are capable of using technology immediately to remove material that breaches copyright, they should be capable of using similar content to stop extremists re-posting or sharing illegal material under a different name. We believe that the government should now assess whether the continued publication of illegal material and the failure to take reasonable steps to identify or remove it is in breach of the law, and how the law and enforcement mechanisms should be strengthened in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee flags multiple examples where it says extremist content was reported to\u00a0the tech giants\u00a0but these reports were not acted on adequately \u2014 calling out Google, especially, for \u201cweakness and delays\u201d in response to reports it made of illegal neo-Nazi propaganda on YouTube.<\/p>\n It also notes the three companies refused to tell it exactly how many people they employ to moderate content, and exactly how much they spend on content moderation.<\/p>\n The report makes especially\u00a0uncomfortable reading for Google with the committee directly accusing it of\u00a0profiting from hatred \u2014 arguing it has allowed\u00a0YouTube to be \u201ca platform from which extremists have generated revenue\u201d, and pointing to the recent spate of advertisers pulling their marketing content from the platform after it was shown being displayed alongside extremist videos. Google responded to the high profile backlash from advertisers by pulling ads from certain types of content<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSocial media companies rely on their users to report extremist and hateful content for review by moderators. They are, in effect, outsourcing the vast bulk of their safeguarding responsibilities at zero expense. We believe that it is unacceptable that social media companies are not taking greater responsibility for identifying illegal content themselves,\u201d the committee\u00a0writes.<\/p>\n \u201cIf social media companies are capable of using technology immediately to remove material that breaches copyright, they should be capable of using similar content to stop extremists re-posting or sharing illegal material under a different name. We believe that the government should now assess whether the continued publication of illegal material and the failure to take reasonable steps to identify or remove it is in breach of the law, and how the law and enforcement mechanisms should be strengthened in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee suggests social media firms should have to contribute to the cost to the taxpayer of policing their platforms \u2014 pointing to how football teams are required\u00a0to pay for policing in their stadiums and the immediate surrounding areas under UK law\u00a0as an equivalent model.<\/p>\n It is also calling for\u00a0social media firms to publish quarterly reports on their safeguarding efforts, including \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cIt is in everyone\u2019s interest, including the social media companies themselves, to find ways to reduce pernicious and illegal material,\u201d the committee\u00a0writes. \u201cTransparent performance reports, published regularly, would be an effective method to drive up standards radically and we hope it would also encourage competition between platforms to find innovative solutions to these persistent problems. If they refuse to do so, we recommend that the government consult on requiring them to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n The report, which is replete with pointed adjectives like\u00a0\u201cshocking\u201d, \u201cshameful\u201d, \u201cirresponsible\u201d and \u201cunacceptable\u201d, follows several\u00a0critical media reports in the\u00a0UK which\u00a0highlighted\u00a0examples of moderation failures on social media platforms, and showed\u00a0extremist<\/a> and\u00a0paedophilic content continuing to be spread<\/a> on social media\u00a0platforms.<\/p>\n Responding to the committee\u2019s report, a YouTube spokesperson told us: \u201cWe take this issue very seriously. We\u2019ve recently tightened our advertising policies and enforcement; made algorithmic updates; and are expanding our partnerships with specialist organisations working in this field. We\u2019ll continue to work hard to tackle these challenging and complex problems\u201d.<\/p>\n In a statement,\u00a0Simon Milner, director of policy at Facebook, added: \u00a0\u201cNothing is more important to us than people\u2019s safety on Facebook. That is why we have quick and easy ways for people to report content, so that we can review, and if necessary remove, it from our platform. We agree with the Committee that there is more we can do to disrupt people wanting to spread hate and extremism online. That\u2019s why we are working closely with partners, including experts at Kings College, London, and at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, to help us improve the effectiveness of our approach. We look forward to engaging with the new Government and parliament on these important issues after the election.\u201d<\/p>\n Nick Pickles, Twitter\u2019s UK head of public policy, provided this statement: \u201cOur Rules clearly stipulate that we do not tolerate hateful conduct and abuse on Twitter. As well as taking action on accounts when they\u2019re reported to us by users, we\u2019ve significantly expanded the scale of our efforts across a number of key areas. From introducing a range of brand new tools to combat abuse, to expanding and retraining our support teams, we\u2019re moving at pace and tracking our progress in real-time. We\u2019re also investing heavily in our technology in order to remove accounts who deliberately misuse our platform for the sole purpose of abusing or harassing\u00a0others. It\u2019s important to note this is an ongoing\u00a0process as we listen to the direct feedback of our users and move quickly in the pursuit of our mission to improve Twitter for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee says it hopes the\u00a0report will\u00a0inform the early decisions of the next government \u2014 with the UK general election due to take place on June 8 \u2014 and feed into \u201cimmediate work\u201d by the three social platforms to be more pro-active about tackling extremist content.<\/p>\n Commenting on the publication of the report yesterday, Home Secretary Amber Rudd told the BBC<\/a>\u00a0she expected to see\u00a0\u201cearly and effective action\u201d from the tech giants.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Featured Image: Twin Design<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/eQdcV5Bc0zg\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social media giants Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have once again been accused of taking a \u201claissez-faire approach\u201d to moderating hate speech content on their platforms. This follows a stepping up <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-5101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n