In the backdrop of appeals by India to remove hate posts, world's largest social networking website Facebook on Wednesday said it will remove content, block pages or even disable accounts of those users who upload contents that incite violence or perpetuate hate speech.
Comprehending the gravity, Facebook's stern warning to itsusers comes in the wake of the Indian government bringing to its notice theposting of contents, including inflammatory matters and doctored pictures and videosto create social unrest in the country.
"Facebook will remove content which breaches our termsas set out in our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
Content or individuals can be removed from Facebook for avariety of reasons including issuing direct calls for violence or perpetuatinghate speech," a Facebook spokesperson told PTI.
"We have received requests from Indian authorities andagencies and are working through those requests and responding to the agencies.We encourage people to continue to use our tools to report content they areconcerned about so that we can investigate and take action fast," thespokesperson said when asked about the actions being taken by the company.
Given the gravity of the situation, which the socialnetworking site officials term "an emergency situation" a largenumber of Facebook employees are working round the clock in both India and theUS to review and monitor the content and take necessary action, which thecompany says is part of its social responsibilities.
In fact, Facebook has already removed quite a significantnumber of such "inflammatory" and "hate" contents from itswebsite and in some cases blocked pages.
However, because of the company policy and privacy reasons,its official would not quantify the number of such actions.
If any user repeatedly tries to upload such hateful content,Facebook can even disable the account, said an official requesting anonymity ashe was not allowed to speak to the press on this issue.
Expressing serious concern over the current situation inIndia wherein people have tried to use Facebook as a tool to incite violence orspread hate, the official said Facebook has taken a number of measures toprevent this.
The company is taking a cue from its 2010 experience ofriots in London wherein it closely worked with local police to prevent itswebsite being used by hatemongers for either gathering purposes or spreadrumors.
The Facebook, the official said, is "prettyaligned" with the views of the Indian government on this and have"not run into any issues" with the government.
"We understand the gravity of the situation," theofficial said, adding that the company has intensified the monitoring of suchcontent related to India.
Facebook has some 50 million users in India. Companyofficials urged users to remain alert on any such inflammatory or objectionableposting and keep it informed.
