Not long after the French Jewish group UEFJ sued Twitter, Facebook and Google in Paris for how they monitor hate speech on the Internet, the social media platforms are vowing to tackle hate speech within the next 24 hours. Over the course of about six weeks in April and May, the anti-discrimination watchdog flagged what they described as undoubtedly racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic hate speech, 90 percent of which was reportedly found on Twitter and YouTube.

The majority of that hate speech, the UEFJ said, remained online for an average of 15 days following requests for removal. Beyond national laws blocking hate speech, there is a need to make sure such commentary from social media users is “expeditiously reviewed by online intermediaries and social media platforms, upon receipt of a valid notification, in an appropriate time-frame,” Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Google, Microsoft Corp. and the European Commission said Tuesday in a joint press release. FULL REPORT


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