Less than two weeks after an extraordinary closed-door summit between top White House counter-terrorism officials and Silicon Valley CEOs, the world is finally getting a glimpse at what they may have talked about.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg said her company company considers that online ‘counterspeech’ is the best way to combat Islamist propaganda.
Sandberg said Facebook was inspired by a recent German “‘like’ attack”.
A recent effort by German Facebook users to “like” the neo-Nazi party’s Facebook page and post positive messages.
“What was a page filled with hatred and intolerance was then tolerance and messages of hope,” she said.
“The best thing to speak against recruitment by Isis are the voices of people who were recruited by Isis, understand what the true experience is, have escaped and have come back to tell the truth … Counter-speech to the speech that is perpetuating hate we think by far is the best answer.”
Previously in her remarks, she admitted that Facebook was losing the battle to erase hate posts, lamenting that every time one was taken down, another popped up in its place.