Facebook said that it was hiring more Sinhala speakers to monitor hate speech on its platform, responding to an open letter from Sri Lankan civil society groups.
In an April 11 email to the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Public Policy Director for India and South Asia, Shivnath Thukral said the company was taking “concrete steps to address misuse of our platform in Sri Lanka.”
“There is no place on Facebook for hate speech, incitement to violence, and other content that violates our Community Standards,” he wrote.
The Centre for Policy Alternatives and 12 other civil society groups published an open letter to the company last week, highlighting posts that advocated violence against Muslims posted earlier.
They alleged that many of these posts stayed online for days, or were judged not in violation of Facebook’s standards.
The company’s rules prohibit any written attacks on people based on their “Race, Ethnicity, National origin, (or) Religious affiliation.”
In response, “we are increasing the number of Sinhala-speaking content reviewers on our Community Operations team to provide around-the-clock coverage,” Thukral said. “(We) will continue to engage with a diverse group of stakeholders, including the Sri Lankan government and civil society organizations like yours, to curb hate speech and deepen our understanding of local context,” he added.