Finnish court acquits lawmaker in freedom of speech case
Helsinki, FinlandAP A Finnish court on Wednesday acquitted a Christian Democrat lawmaker and former interior minister of alleged incitement against gay people, in a case considered an important precedent on the limits of freedom of speech in the Nordic country. The Helsinki District Court said in its ruling that while some of the public statements […]
Essay: ‘David’s Law’ not enough for digital clean-up
MAL FLETCHER reflects on calls to address everything from social media abuse of MPs to concerns over hateful material on the Dark Web in the wake of the killing of UK MP Sir David Amess…
French court orders Twitter to provide details on what it is doing to tackle hate speech
Paris, FranceReuters A French court has ordered Twitter to provide clear details on what it is doing to tackle hate speech, according to a court judgment obtained by Reuters, after several French lobby groups had asked Twitter to clamp down more on hateful content. The court ruling, which was presided over by magistrate Fabrice Vert, […]
UN chief urges global alliance to counter rise of neo-Nazis
United NationsAP Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged coordinated global action on Monday to build an alliance against the growth and spread of neo-Nazism and white supremacy and the resurgence of xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and hate speech sparked partly by the COVID-19 pandemic. The UN chief also urged international action “to fight propaganda and disinformation.” And he called […]
Twitter expands hate speech rules to include race, ethnicity
Palo Alto, USReuters Twitter Inc on Wednesday expanded its policy barring hateful speech to include “language that dehumanises people on the basis of race, ethnicity and national origin,” it said in a statement. The company banned speech that dehumanises others based on religion or caste last year and updated the rule in March to add […]
Facebook offers up first-ever estimate of hate speech prevalence on its platform
Reuters Facebook Inc for the first time on Thursday disclosed numbers on the prevalence of hate speech on its platform, saying that out of every 10,000 content views in the third quarter, 10 to 11 included hate speech. The world’s largest social media company, under scrutiny over its policing of abuses, particularly around November’s US […]
Facebook reports spike in takedowns of hate speech, terrorism
San FranciscoReuters Facebook Inc on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in the number of posts it removed for promoting violence and hate speech across its apps, which it attributed to improvements made to its technology for automatically identifying text and images. The world’s biggest social media company removed about 4.7 million posts connected to organised […]
Facebook a ‘megaphone for hate’ against Indian minorities
Mumbai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation Facebook is failing to rein in a “tsunami” of hate posts inflaming ethnic tensions in India’s Assam state, campaign group Avaaz said on Wednesday, with content about “criminals”, “rapists”, “terrorists” and “dogs” shared almost 100,000 times. Avaaz said the dehumanising language – often targeting India’s Bengali Muslims – was similar to […]
ESSAY: CULTIVATE COMMON GROUND REGARDING FAITH IN PUBLIC LIFE
In an excerpt from her new book, ‘Faith in Public Life’, MELISSA ROGERS, former executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and now a visiting professor at Wake Forest University, underlines the important role decisions about faith in public life play in determining the country’s future…
Many states inflict “serious cruelty” on rights activists – UN
Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters One-quarter of UN member states have carried out suspected reprisals against activists who cooperate with the world body on human rights issues, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday. China, Egypt, Iran, and Vietnam were among states named in his annual report who rejected the allegations during a two-hour debate at the UN […]