Facebook is chiming in on the online propoganda conversation this week with the announcement of a Europe-wide campaign to counter extremist-posts on the site.
The social media site has pledged $1.4 million toward a campaign dubbed Online Civil Courage Intiative, which aims to support non-governmental agencies monitoring hate speech online. And while Daesh's propoganda machine on Twitter and Facebook is a conversation we know well by now, Facebook's new campaign instead looks to mediate a different kind of hate speech—xenophobia.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, said the site's representatives have "repeatedly emphasized that Facebook is no place for the dissemination of xenophobia, hate speech or calls for violence. With this new initiative, we are convinced to better understand and respond to the challenges of extremist speech on the Internet."
A growing undercurrent of anti-foreigner sentiment has taken European countries by storm in the wake of the refugee exodus from the Middle East. The feeling has grown much more severe in recent weeks following mass sexual assault attacks in Cologne, Germany on New Years Eve.
The initialtive also follows a November investigation into hate speech in Hamburg, where state prosecuters accused Facebook's managing director for Northern, Central and Eastern Europe, Martin Ott, of not doing enough to counter, monitor and stop the spread of hate speech posted on the site.
On the ground, the influx of war-torn refugees to Europe has triggered a multifaceted response and a growing list of questions about how Europe's refugee policy is developing—and were it will end up.
