UK warns Google, Twitter, FB to better fight hate speech

Bloomberg

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd warned Facebook Inc,. Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Twitter Inc. to improve monitoring of extremist and hate content after a panel of lawmakers urged her to consider making the hosting of such material a crime.
A report from Parliament’s cross-party Home Affairs Committee, published on Monday, said the companies are “shamefully far” from having done enough to deal with illegal and dangerous content and was scornful of claims that there is little more they can do. It is “shocking” that Google’s YouTube subsidiary allows paid advertising to appear alongside videos created by terrorist groups, the panel said.
The report comes days after the UK government protested a decision by Twitter to stop letting security officials track terrorist-related posts. While Rudd stopped short of agreeing with the committee’s recommendation to look at legislation, lawmakers are becoming more confrontational with Internet giants.
“We have made it very clear that we will not tolerate the internet being used as a place for terrorists to promote their vile views, or use social media platforms to weaponize the most vulnerable people in our communities,” Rudd said in an emailed statement. “We will continue to push the internet companies to make sure they deliver on their commitments.”
The committee’s inquiry was sparked by the murder of House of Commons lawmaker Jo Cox during the referendum campaign last year on leaving the European Union. It examined online material and considered whether it might be encouraging hate crime.
Among its conclusions were that YouTube is “awash” with racist material. It said the company refused to remove a video by David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, titled “Jews admit organizing White Genocide,” saying it “did not cross the line into hate speech.”
Twitter hosted “significant numbers of racist and dehumanizing tweets that were plainly intended to stir up hatred,” the panel said.