Facebook, Twitter, and Google are partnering with Germany to help make refugee’s transition a little bit easier in one simple way: eliminating hate speech.
The technology giants agreed to delete any hate speech from their websites within 24 hours as part of a new agreement with German authorities. The nation has been lobbying social platforms to help tamp down the rise of anti-foreigner comments as the nation is on the verge of accepting as many as 1 million refugees this year, reported Reuters.
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas had approached Facebook about deleting hateful anti-refugee comments as early as August this year after designated refugee centers were burned in suspected arson attacks.
“When the limits of free speech are trespassed, when it is about criminal expressions, sedition, incitement to carry out criminal offences that threaten people, such content has to be deleted from the net,” Mass said following the agreement with the three companies.
Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), and Google (GOOG) will have special teams setup to process the reports concerning any hate speech on their sites, giving users an easier way to flag items of concern.
Germany is expected to allow in somewhere between 800,000 to 1 million refugees this year, according to various reports. The influx, an equivalent of 1% of the German population, would be the largest since the end of World War II, reported Bloomberg. Though, Chancellor Angela Merkel has backtracked on the nation’s promise and pledged to “markedly reduce” the number of migrants entering Germany.