Sri Lankan government is having a meeting with Facebook officials today over allegations that the social media site was used for a hate campaign against Muslim minorities, in the recent violence in Kandy district.
Several organizations and government agencies had claimed that Facebook failed to take swift action against the hate speech on its website, particularly in local Sinhala language as it does not have sufficient resources. In some cases, the reported cases failed to qualify as hate speech as per company regulations.
The company said that it was responding to the situation in Sri Lanka and was working with the government and non-governmental organizations to support the identification and removal of any hate speech on its platform.
The violence against minorities had led to the imposition of emergency and social media ban in the country. While the ban on Whatsapp and Viber have been removed, Facebook continues to be blocked in the country.
Facebook was recently charged by a UN official of contributing to the conflict in Myanmar, where thousands of Rohingya Muslims were driven out of the country.
