• Shopping Cart Shopping Cart
    0Shopping Cart
Campaign Against Antisemitism
  • Link to X
  • Link to Tiktok
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to LinkedIn
  • Link to Mail
  • ANTISEMITISM
    • Definition of Antisemitism
    • Recognising Antisemitism
    • The Law of Antisemitism
    • Resources for Teachers
  • RESEARCH
    • Prevalence of Antisemitism
    • Antisemitic Crime Levels
    • Prosecutions for Antisemitism
    • Effects on British Jews
    • Antisemitism in Political Parties
    • EHRC
    • Antisemitism in Universities
    • Antisemitism in Local Authorities
  • NEWS
    • Latest News
    • Media Centre
  • PODCAST
  • ABOUT US
    • Our Work
    • Spokespeople
  • HELP US
    • Subscribe
    • Volunteer with us
    • Intern with us
    • Work with us
    • Become a Student Ambassador
    • Donate
  • CONTACT
    • General Enquiries
    • Media Enquiries
    • Licensing
  • Click to open the search input field Click to open the search input field Search
  • Menu Menu
Social media, United Kingdom UK-only e-mail list (not for international stories), Website

Facebook COO shirks fight against online hate

Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday and delivered an astonishing message: fight hate on Facebook by ‘liking’ hate pages and posting positive messages on them.

For a company with an extremely poor track record in fighting online hatred, we expected that the company’s next announcement might be for technology that detects and removes common content that incites and intimidates, such as Islamist or neo-Nazi links, memes and hashtags.

Instead, Sandberg’s ridiculous suggestion places the burden once again on Facebook’s users.

Already the company requires users to report “hate speech” such as antisemitic content, but then Facebook invariably tells users that the content they reported did not breach “community standards”. We continue to see everything from modern day antisemitic conspiracy myths that Jews are funding ISIS, to mediaeval blood libels, spread like wildfire on the social network, with Facebook’s reporting system failing abysmally to have any effect.

Sandberg’s new idea that users should spend their time ‘liking’ pages that incite hatred and trying to post positive content on them is the most ludicrous non-solution imaginable. ‘Liking’ and commenting on pages increases their visibility on users’ news feeds, and thereby exposes more people to the page’s message. The idea that positive comments would have any effect is also nonsensical as comments can be deleted faster than they can be written, which is why antisemitic comments posted on our own Facebook page rarely stay there longer than a few minutes.

The sole evidence Sandberg offered in support of her idea was a story about the ‘successful’ targeting of the German National Democratic Party’s page on Facebook. Extolling the benefits of what she called a “like attack”, Sandberg took Facebook users for fools, patronisingly saying: “Rather than scream and protest, they got 100,000 people to like the page, who did not like the page and put messages of tolerance on the page, so when you got to the page, it changed the content and what was a page filled with hatred and intolerance was then tolerance and messages of hope. The best antidote to bad speech is good speech and the best antidote to hate is tolerance.” Except that what really happened is 100,000 people wasted their time because not long after the “like attack”, NPD’s Facebook page was back to normal, except that now it had a lot more ‘likes’ and appeared more often on Facebook users’ news feeds and higher in search results.

Instead of coming up with increasingly pointless ways of distracting users from Facebook’s failure to robustly tackle incitement and intimidation on its platform, it is time for Facebook to innovate. Facebook must develop means of detecting and removing hatred in exactly the same way that it proactively removes child pornography and copyright music and video from the platform.

Related

      
22/01/2016
Search Search
  • CAA calls for proscriptions today to protect Jewish lives13/06/2025 - 15:43
  • CAA calls on Home Secretary to proscribe Palestine Action under Terrorism Act12/06/2025 - 18:10
  • “Resistance is justified”: Friends of Palestine Society suspended at University of Birmingham11/06/2025 - 17:07
  • We will do everything we can to defend the Jewish community04/06/2025 - 20:44
  • CAA commences private prosecution against David Miller 04/06/2025 - 11:07
  • Warrant issued for comedian Reginald D. Hunter in private prosecution brought by CAA30/05/2025 - 14:38
  • The real destination of ‘Free Palestine’27/05/2025 - 20:22
  • Vigil for murdered Embassy staffers, 22nd May 2025
    Vigil in London for murdered Israeli Embassy staffers draws hundreds22/05/2025 - 22:00
  • Kneecap member charged with terrorism offence22/05/2025 - 09:33
  • Witness appeal: Theft of mezuzah in Golders Green caught on camera20/05/2025 - 17:47

We are seeking to recruit a General Counsel a Creative Communications and Events Officer a Communications and Research Manager an Education and Outreach Intern to join our London office

Join the fight

Subscribe
Volunteer
Donate

Campaign Against Antisemitism is a volunteer-led charity dedicated to exposing and countering antisemitism through education and zero-tolerance enforcement of the law. Everything that we do is done by people who volunteer their time, using donations contributed by members of the public. Join the fight against antisemitism by subscribing to our updates, volunteering, or donating.

Related

Justice, justice, you shall pursue - צדק צדק תרדף
© Copyright - Campaign Against Antisemitism, all rights reserved. Our logo is a registered trademark.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is a charitable incorporated organisation registered with the Charity Commission (number 1163790).
Use of our website is subject to our terms. Trees are planted every year to keep our work carbon neutral.
  • Link to X
  • Link to Tiktok
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to LinkedIn
  • Link to Mail
Link to: Thug who threatened to “kill all the Jews” convicted by Crown Court Link to: Thug who threatened to “kill all the Jews” convicted by Crown Court Thug who threatened to “kill all the Jews” convicted by Crown Court Link to: Journalist forces antisemite to disembark from train for claiming “ISIS was created by the Jews” Link to: Journalist forces antisemite to disembark from train for claiming “ISIS was created by the Jews” Journalist forces antisemite to disembark from train for claiming “ISIS was...
Scroll to top Scroll to top Scroll to top

We use cookies to track use of our website and your preferences. Use of our website is subject to our terms of use and privacy policy.

Read more.Accept cookies and our terms of use

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Terms of use and privacy policy
Accept settingsHide notification only
SIGN UP FOR UPDATES BY E-MAIL

By default you will receive weekly e-mails, but when you receive the first e-mail you can change to daily or monthly e-mails instead.

If you prefer to subscribe later, you can do so by scrolling right to the bottom of this page.