Cyberhate Cannot be Tackled Alone
Major Internet and Social Media Companies Step Up to Stem Online Hate
Since 2010, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has worked tirelessly to bring together a broad spectrum of technology and social media companies with the goal of seeking solutions to stemming online hate through close collaboration. This week’s groundbreaking announcement by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube to convene a “Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and Extremism,” is an example of how such collaborations can create synergies that were unimaginable a few years ago and has the potential of a domino effect to inspire other mainstream tech entities to jump on board.
Knowledge sharing is the cornerstone of ADL’s approach to most issues, especially in today’s ever expanding digital world. Time and time again, gatherings of communities and issue stakeholders have yielded remarkable insight into shared problems and shared solutions. To date, this approach has been more productive than accusation, instigation or legislation. A key part of ADL’s best practices for challenging cyberhate calls on the Internet community to share knowledge and help develop educational materials and programs that encourage critical thinking in both proactive and reactive online activities. We remain laser focused on reversing what seems to be a never-ending spate of online harassment. For example, our recent research has detailed a troubling year-long rise in anti-Semitic hate against members of the press from all sides of the political spectrum during the 2016 presidential election. This was an epiphany for us and we subsequently issued a broad set of recommendations to reverse this surge, which includes action items for industry, policymakers, the legal community, journalists and the general public.
In the spirit of continuing this much needed collaborative fight against online hate, we secured funding earlier this year to build a state-of-the-art command center in Silicon Valley to combat this growing problem. The Center will aim to employ the best technology and seasoned experts to monitor, track, analyze and mitigate hate speech and harassment across the Internet, in support of the Jewish community and other minority groups.
There is clearly no magic wand or silver bullet that can eradicate the problem, which makes the Internet a difficult environment for problem solving. It is not static. Technology changes constantly and unforeseen consequences happen daily, which warrants platforms to ensure that hateful content — from anti-Semitic harassment to terror recruiting — is not able to breathe online. Through open exchange, collaboration and innovative thinking by all participants — public, industry and government — meaningful sustainable change can happen. The good news on this front is that these tech giants understand the issue and share ADL’s serious concerns.
Our industry colleagues should be commended for convening such a forum. We will continue calling on other groups and users in the online world to follow their example by encouraging greater efforts to curb harassment and all forms of digital extremism.
Fighting cyberhate has never been more critical. However, we cannot go it alone.
Jonathan Greenblatt is CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
