Communal leaders to discuss online racism with Facebook chief
FACEBOOK’S VICE president Nicola Mendelsohn is to meet communal leaders on Friday to discuss concerns that the social media giant has failed to do enough to tackle antisemitism and hate speech on its platforms.
The Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust will send representatives to Friday’s virtual meeting, which takes place as the government continues to prepare an Online Harms Bill, which will “impose tough penalties” on platforms that fail to act against hate speech.
The meeting with Facebook’s vicepresident for Europe, the Middle East and Africa takes place only weeks after Facebook and Twitter were singled out for criticism over their failure to act swiftly against the antisemitic online rants by the rapper Wiley.
Ms Mendelsohn, who is also a nonexecutive director of Diageo, has been labelled “the most powerful woman in the British tech industry”.
She was appointed by Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg as the company’s most senior figure in Europe in 2013. But Ms Mendelsohn has retained her close link to the community and is an active member of Finchley United Synagogue alongside her husband, the Labour peer Lord Mendelsohn.
Communal leaders are again expected to stress their concerns that the social media giants are failing to accept their “duty of care” to users of
their platforms who wish to be protected from hate speech – and see effective measures to tackle those who go online to spread hatred.
Last month Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Cl egg wrote to Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to say that he “fully” understood why, in a letter sent to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Rabbi had said he had suspended his activity on the platform.
Mr Cl egg then set out the step she said his company took in situations such the one involving the Grime star Wiley, who had used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to post a stream of antisemitic messages including claims Jews were snakes who treated black artists like slaves in the music industry.
An investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a UK-based counter-extremist organisation, also found that Facebook’ s algorithm“actively promotes” Holocaust denial content by recommending pages and links to organisations and individuals who are renowned for sharing these views.
The study showed that by typing “Holocaust” into the Facebook search, users were taken to pages dedicated to Holocaust denier David Irving and other groups that have questioned the Shoah.
In an interview with the JC last November, Ms Mendel sohn said she was “proud” the company employs 35,000 content moderators, and that 99.9 per cent of terrorism-related posts are picked up before they are made public.
Facebook has previously worked with Hope not Hate, the Community Security Trust and the Board of Deputies to make sure Jews know how to report antisemitic posts or threats.
Digital and Culture Secretary Oliver Dow den had outlined the government’ s proposed Online Harms Bill in July which he said would make this government“the first in the world” to introduce laws that make social media safe and tolerant rather than “a safe space for antisemitism”.
The JC has approached Facebook for comment on Friday’s meeting.