Former US diplomat Samantha Power urges Sri Lanka to insist that Facebook crack down on hate speeches

Former US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Samantha Power has urged that Sri Lanka insist on Facebook upholding its standard for all local languages in the country in a bid to crackdown on hate speeches, partly thought to have fuelled anti-Muslim violence last year.

“Governments like yours  . . . are going to have to insist that Facebook uphold its ‘Community Standards’ for all of Sri Lanka’s national languages, or face serious repercussions,” she said. 

“It is simply not acceptable that Facebook has not invested more in equipping itself to monitor posts in languages like Tamil or Sinhala.” 

Ms. Power said a platform with this much influence and reach could not get by just doing the bare minimum.

“Facebook needs to be far more transparent, so that experts and civil society can guide the company in how to do better in the context of the unique challenges Sri Lanka faces,” she said, referring to anti-Muslim violence last year, after hate speech and conspiracy theories about Muslims disseminated on social media.

Her remarks were made at a forum to mark 30 years in politics of Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera yesterday (Feb 28)

Ms Power said Minister Samaraweera was one of the first political leaders to take to Twitter during the crisis to condemn the hate speech, sending a clear message of zero tolerance for politicians and others who incited racial violence.

“In societies like ours – with mixed ethnicities and religions, with free speech and extreme voices – we ignore this reality at our peril,” she said.

Power said rapid advances in fields from social media to AI to automation are posing profound risks to democracies. 

“These tools are going to be decisive in global development going forward, but governments must confront their dark uses as well as their boundless possibilities,” she said. 

“I believe we need to dramatically increase our scrutiny of the effects of new technologies.  . . . these platforms also have potentially deadly impact when it comes to the rights and well-being of marginalized groups,” Power said.

“When it comes to companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, which failed for too long to grapple with the dangerous uses and effects of their products, it does now finally seem that they are seized with the abuses that their platforms have enabled. 

“But these companies need to prioritize contributing to the health of democracy as a goal, right alongside making yet more money.

 Power said she was encouraged to hear that Facebook has committed to serving up to 20,000 Sri Lankan children in a digital literacy program to be run this year, and that they are participating in the government’s MART Social Circles initiative, to prepare people to better discern fake news.