Facebook Responds To Critics Demanding Action Against ISIS

Facebook has responded to a petition criticizing the way it deals with posts that apparently support terrorism or the so-called Islamic State.

"There is no place on Facebook for terrorists, terrorist propaganda or the praising of terror," Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of global product policy, wrote in a Tuesday post on Change.org, where the petition can be found. 

Julia Guilbault, a 37-year-old web designer, created the petition after the deadly shootings and suicide bombings in Paris on Nov. 13. She noticed that some Facebook accounts were using the hashtag #RechercheParis to post statements in support of ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the massacre. That hashtag, however, was meant to help French people search for loved ones in the aftermath of the attacks. 

"Every 5 minutes, ISIS bot accounts sent the statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, along with links to pro ISIS accounts," Guilbault explained in the petition.

She said she and others worked to flag one some of this content, but that Facebook was relatively slow to react. "[I]t takes two minutes to create a toxic jihadi account, and more than three days to get it deleted," she wrote. "The Islamic State’s propaganda can widely spread on these networks, because of their strong and efficient communication skills."

More than 140,000 people had signed her petition, as of Wednesday evening.

Bickert's response noted that Facebook's best tool against harmful content is its network of 1.5 billion users worldwide, adding that the site relies on a global team to review terrorist content and prioritizes such content for review.

"When a crisis happens anywhere in the world, we organize our employees and, if necessary, shift resources to ensure that we are able to respond quickly to any violating content on the site," Bickert wrote. "For instance, in the wake of the recent attacks in Paris, we also reached out immediately to NGOs, media, and government officials, to get the latest information so that we were prepared to act quickly. Many of our employees, especially our French speakers, worked around the clock to respond to the spike in reports from our community."

"This is not an easy job and we know we can make mistakes and are always working to improve our responsiveness and accuracy," she added. 

As The Huffington Post reported last week, policing Facebook against violent content presents a host of problems, as authentic content moderation is not always a straightforward process.

Bickert's acknowledged this difficulty, adding that people often share controversial content in order to educate others or move people to take action. 

"If Facebook blocked all upsetting content, we would inevitably block the media, charities and others from reporting on what is happening in the world," she wrote.

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