Facebook and Twitter have failed to take down hundreds of inflammatory Islamophobic postings despite being alerted by anti-racism groups, an investigation has revealed.
The Independent said the number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, have increased significantly in recent months in the aftermath of the Rotherham sex abuse scandal and the murder of British hostages held by the Islamic State group (IS).
In most cases those behind the abuse have not had their accounts suspended or the posts removed, according to the newspaper, despite Muslim groups bringing the abuse to the social media sites’ attention.
Fiyaz Mughal, director of interfaith organisation Faith Matters, said: ‘It is morally unacceptable that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which are vast profit-making companies, socially engineer what is right and wrong to say in our society when they leave up inflammatory, highly socially divisive and openly bigoted views.’
A Facebook spokeswoman defended the company but admitted due to the large amount of people who used the site there would occasionally be content that was offensive.
‘We take hate speech seriously and remove any content reported to us that directly attacks others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition,’ she added.
‘With a diverse global community of more than a billion people, we occasionally see people post content which, whilst not against our rules, some people may find offensive.
