You profit from social media hate, tech giants told by MPs
SOCIAL media companies have been accused of profiting from hatred, as they were taken to task by politicians in the UK for inaction over hate speech.
Senior executives from Twitter, Facebook and Google, which owns YouTube, were strongly criticised for failing to remove offensive content.
Yvette Cooper, the chairwoman of the UK’s Home Affairs Select Committee, said algorithms used by the companies to suggest relevant content were helping to radicalise and groom users.
She said: “The reason we are pressing you so hard about this is because it is so important. Because in the end this is about the kinds of extremism – whether that be Islamic extremism or far-right extremism – that can lead to very violent incidents.
“It is about the kinds of hate crime that destroys lives. It is about the kind of harassment and abuse that can undermine political debate and undermine democracy and you are some of the richest companies in the world. And that is why we need you to accelerate and do more.”
Ms Cooper said that algorithms used by social media firms were leading people to extremist material.
“The police have said very clearly to us that they are extremely worried about online radicalisation and online grooming,” she said.
“Isn’t the real truth that your algorithms... are doing that grooming and that radicalisation? ”
Ms Cooper said she found it hard to believe that enough was being done to tackle hate crime, after it emerged that anti-Semitic and abusive tweets flagged by MPs at an earlier committee hearing had still not been removed.
Addressing Dublin-based Sinéad McSweeney, who is Twitter’s vice-president of public policy and communication for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Ms Cooper said: “I’m kind of wondering what we have to do. We sat in this committee in a public hearing and raised a clearly vile antiSemitic tweet with your organisation.
“It was discussed and it is still there and everybody accepted – you’ve accepted, your predecessor accepted – that it was unacceptable. But it is still there on the platform. What is it that we have got to do to get you to take it down?”
The hearing took place the day after Twitter suspended a number of accounts, including that of Britain First’s deputy leader Jayda Fransen, who gained notoriety when three anti-Muslim videos she posted were retweeted by US President Donald Trump.
Facebook’s director of public policy Simon Milner told the committee that Britain First’s page on its platform was under review.
He said: “We are reviewing it but we are very, very cautious about political speech.”
Ms McSweeney said there were “balances and risks” in how content was flagged for recommendation to avoid censoring items, while Mr Milner said Facebook was actively working with communities to tackle radicalisation online.
But Tory MP Tim Loughton said tech giants were inciting violence through inaction. He added: “You are profiting from the fact that people are using your platforms to further the ills of society and you’re allowing them to do it and doing very little, proactively, to prevent them.”