Facebook staff in Sri Lanka learning to spot hate content

Colombo: Three months after Sri Lanka was rocked by deadly antiMuslim riots fuelled by online vitriol, Facebook is training its staff to identify inflammatory content in the country’s local languages. The social network has been seeking penance in Sri Lanka after the authorities blocked Facebook in March as incendiary posts by Buddhist hardliners fanned religious violence that left three people dead and reduced hundreds of mosques, homes and businesses to ashes. Until the week-long ban, appeals to Facebook to act against the contagion of hate speech had been met with deafening silence, at a time when the US tech giant was reeling from unprecedented scrutiny over fake news and user privacy.