Facebook says it will step up hate monitoring as ad boycott gathers steam

Facebook is pledging to take further steps to remove toxic and hateful content from the leading social network ahead of a meeting between top executives and organizers of a mushrooming ad boycott.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg were to speak with leaders of the #StopHateForProfit campaign, organized by the NAACP, Color of Change and the Anti-Defamation League.

Sandberg says the Silicon Valley giant will be announcing policy updates as a result of discussions with civil rights activists and its own audit of civil rights practices, set to be published Wednesday.

“We are making changes — not for financial reasons or advertiser pressure, but because it is the right thing to do,” Sandberg writes on the social media site.

“We have worked for years to try to minimize the presence of hate on our platform. That’s why we agreed to undertake the civil rights audit two years ago.”

More than 900 advertisers have paused their campaigns on Facebook as part of the boycott, meant to pressure the social media giant into doing more to remove hatespeech from its platform.

Zuckerberg has for years insisted that he does not think the platform should decide on censoring political speech, drawing protests.

— AFP