Facebook staff to learn Sinhala insults after Sri Lanka’s anti-Muslim riots fuelled by online accusations
Appeals to Facebook to act against the contagion of hate speech were met with deafening silence, prompting authorities to block access to the site in March
Until the week-long ban, appeals to Facebook to act against the contagion of hate speech had been met with deafening silence, at a time when the California-based tech giant was reeling from unprecedented global scrutiny over fake news and user privacy.
“We did make mistakes and we were slow,” Facebook spokeswoman Amrit Ahuja said in Colombo.
The dearth of staff fluent in Sinhala – the language spoken by Sri Lanka’s largest ethnic group – compounded the issue, with government officials and activists saying the oversight allowed extremist content to flourish undetected on the platform.
Ahuja said Facebook was committed to hiring more Sinhala speakers but declined to say how many were currently employed in Sri Lanka.