Let’s destroy Isis with our ‘like’ button, says Facebook chief

USA politicians have complained that the companies are not doing enough to keep terrorists away from civilians online.

“In the past year, we’ve seen millions of people come together online to support refugees and stand in solidarity with the victims of terror attacks”, Sandberg wrote in a post on her Facebook page on Monday. “The best antidote to hate is tolerance”. But we’ve also heard voices of hate growing louder.

It’s not clear how any algorithm or human working for Facebook would decide what ideas are deemed “hate speech”.

Ms Sandberg told how “the best antidote to hate is tolerance” when she addressed a debate this week. Amplifying those voices – counter-speech to the speech that is perpetrating hate – we think is by far the best answer’.

“With extremism damaging lives and societies across the world, challenging those voices has never been more important”.

The OCCI pulls together the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) and the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, working in partnership with Facebook.

The initiative, announced by the social network’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, is thought to be more effective than to “scream and shout in protest”.

Her comments followed Facebook’s announcement earlier this week that it was pledging over $1 million to launch an “Initiative for Civil Courage Online”, which will partner with the German government, NGOs, and academic researchers to counter extremist posts on the social network.

In recent weeks, tech executives from Twitter, Google, Microsoft, and other companies met with members of President Obama’s administration to discuss methods to combat terrorism online.

Facebook’s “like” button is a sign of approval but Ms Sandberg believes the feature can also be used on negative posts and pages to combat their negative messages.