New Facebook initiative to tackle online extremist material

Facebook is to step up combating extremist material online by educating charities and non-government organisations (NGOs) about countering hate speech. Facebook’s Online Civil Courage Initiative, already set up in Germany and France, aims to help charities and NGOs identify and eliminate hate speech. The company will launch the initiative, which trains organisations to monitor and respond to extremist content and creates a dedicated support desk where concerns can be flagged up, in the UK soon. The new initiative follows the criticism that Facebook, Google, Twitter and other networking companies have received about the spreading of extremist material online. A Home Office spokesman said: “Technology companies still need to go further and faster in moving towards preventing this type of toxic output being disseminated in the first place. We look forward to seeing how the industry-led forum, which will combat terrorist use of the internet, will build on this collective response to the threat.”