An investigative piece in the Guardian last week has revealed a “vast international operation” in which a mysterious group, traced back to Israel, has co-opted least 21 far-right pages on Facebook to create a “commercial enterprise that harvests anti-Islamic hate for profit and influences politics across the globe.” They have used these pages to co-ordinate…
The former leader of the far-right group the English Defence League (EDL), Tommy Robinson, has been jailed for thirteen months for breaking contempt of court laws with a Facebook Live video that could prejudice an ongoing trial. His supporters have protested his imprisonment, and Donald Trump Jr. has leant his support to their cause.
The National Union of Students (NUS) has published its report ‘The experience of Muslim students in 2017-18’. The report highlights the obstacles Muslim students experience in higher and further education, including raising concerns about the effect of the Prevent initiative.
The leader and deputy leader of Britain First have been jailed for the religiously aggravated harassment of Muslims, and the group’s Facebook pages have been banned for inciting hatred. Facebook’s actions follow calls from authorities for social media firms to do more to combat hate speech.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a hashtag campaign to encourage action against hate speech. He launched the #endthehate campaign through a video on his personal and mayoral Twitter feed in conjunction with his keynote address to SXSW 2018, and also called on social media companies to do more to combat it.
