By Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- A group of Democratic attorneys general jumped
into the debate over monitoring content on social media Wednesday,
urging Facebook Inc. to take additional steps to combat harassment
and hate speech.
In a letter to Facebook executives, the attorneys general for
California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois and other states called
on the social-media platform to offer live, real-time assistance so
users can report intimidation and harassment.
They also asked Facebook to improve its filtering and blocking
tools for hate speech and to be more cooperative with
law-enforcement authorities investigating hate crimes.
"They are really the biggest vehicles out there for spreading
hate and disinformation," New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir
Grewal, whose office helped organize the letter, said in an
interview.
A Facebook spokesman said the company shares the concerns of the
attorneys general, and noted it regularly removes hateful content
or covers it with a warning screen. Facebook said it removed 9.6
million pieces of content for violating policies against hate
speech in the first quarter of this year, up from 5.7 million in
the previous quarter.
All the signatories of the letter were Democrats. A spokesman
for Mr. Grewal said his office offered some Republican attorneys
general an opportunity to sign an early draft of the letter, and
that he welcomed GOP colleagues endorsing it now that it is
public.
Precisely what defines hate speech has sometimes been a point of
contention between members of the two parties, with Republicans
arguing that concerns over hateful speech has been used to
arbitrarily squelch conservative viewpoints.
During a House antitrust subcommittee hearing last week that
included testimony from tech executives, Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio)
asked them whether they were worried about online discourse where
"anyone gets attacked for expressing a viewpoint."
In the hearing, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he shared
those concerns, adding "I am very worried about some of the forces
of the liberalism that I see in this country that are pushing
against free expression."
In their letter, the attorneys general for 19 states and the
District of Columbia defined harassing content as that "focused on
characteristics protected by the civil rights laws that many of us
are charged with enforcing, including race, religion, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, and
disability."
Mr. Grewal, who is Sikh and wears a turban, said he often finds
himself the target of hateful comments about his religion or
appearance. He said one of the most effective things Facebook could
do is respond more quickly to users in distress.
He cited one case where his office last year alerted the company
to a Facebook group based around Lakewood, N.J. The group was
organized around expelling Orthodox Jews from the area, and online
comments included language inciting violence such as "We need to
get rid of them like Hitler did," according to a letter Mr.
Grewal's office sent to Facebook in April 2019.
Facebook removed the group about 10 months later, Mr. Grewal
said.
"This is a platform where hate and disinformation spreads like
wildfire in minutes," he said. "Somebody needs to be able to pick
up a phone to call and get help."
In his House testimony last week, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook
has invested billions of dollars to police hate speech, involving
both employee review and automated detection systems.
"We're now at 89 percent of the hate speech that we remove
before anyone even reports it to us," he said.
In their letter, the attorneys general said that "although
Facebook has made some progress in counteracting the use of its
platform to dehumanize and demean, that is just the beginning of
what is necessary."
The letter cites a January 2020 survey of online harassment
commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League and conducted by YouGov.
Of the roughly 2,000 respondents, 44% had experienced harassment
online and of those, 77% said the harassment occurred at least in
part on Facebook.
The letter to Facebook follows a separate initiative by
attorneys general from most U.S. states examining the company for
possible antitrust violations.
Mr. Grewal said New Jersey is willing to use the tools at its
disposal if the company doesn't act, while noting that Facebook has
broad immunity and latitude to police content under Section 230 of
the federal Communications Decency Act.
Facebook is facing pressure from many directions to do more to
combat harmful content. Hundreds of advertisers paused spending on
the platform earlier this summer, citing insufficient action to
curb hate speech and misinformation. In July, a civil rights audit
Facebook commissioned characterized the company's efforts to date
as "too reactive and piecemeal." Facebook has said it can do better
and is creating teams to address racial bias on its main platform
and its Instagram unit.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 05, 2020 17:26 ET (21:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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