Facebook Inc., the world's largest social media network, is more aggressively monitoring material on its site relating to terrorism and, according to
The Wall Street Journal, has even assembled a team solely for terrorism content to help promote "counter speech," or posts that attempt to discredit groups like the Islamic State.
The new team was created as global terrorism is ever-growing and posing continuous attacks on Westerners.
Government officials have stressed the importance of tech companies policing extremist propaganda online and just last week Twitter Inc. suspended 125,000 accounts reportedly associated with the Islamic State.
While Facebook is finding itself deciphering freedom of speech posts from terrorism threats, many, including a non-profit privacy organization, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have pleaded with the social media company not to "become agents of the government."
However, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who ran the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to 2014, told The Wall Street Journal that tech companies "have a social responsibility to not just see themselves as a place where people can freely express themselves and debate issues."
The Wall Street Journal notes that the new leader of Facebook's latest approach is Monika Bickert a former federal prosecutor whose team sets global policy for what can be posted on the social network.
In an effort to avoid tipping off terrorist groups, Facebook wouldn't discuss "the criteria it uses to determine what material supports terrorism and how many terror experts it has hired."
However, Facebook's new approach is being praised by some who say the company is more helpful than other tech firms.
Mark Wallace of the Counter Extremism Project, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Wall Street Journal that Facebook is "the social-media company that's on the greatest trajectory to be a solution to the problem."
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