In 2014, the number of records of social media, accusing Muslims of heinous crimes and containing insults against Islam, has increased significantly, but Twitter and Facebook are not in a hurry to take measures, so incitement to violence and insults of believers continue to be available to millions of users around the world, writes the Independent
The newspaper notes that some of these contain direct appeals to shoot Muslims in the UK, but in most cases the management of social networks turns a blind eye and doesn't even warn users. Over the last four months Muslim communities have tried to collect data about the insults and relay them to the administrations of Twitter and Facebook. They pointed to dozens of accounts and hundreds of messages, but most of them are still available on the pages of these social networks.
As was stated by Facebook, these messages do not violate the rules of the organization. "We view seriously messages which provoking hatred, and delete any content that offends race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities or health conditions," explained a company representative. Twitter also assured that it checks all the content that users are complaining about, and its rules prohibit threats of violence.
In his turn, Fiyaz Mughal, who is the director of the interfaith organization Faith Matters, which helps victims of Islamophobia, called it unacceptable when platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which make huge profits, decide what you can and cannot say, since they encourage social stratification and fanatical views in society.
"These social platforms have turned themselves into a factory for making money, but they cannot sit back and build our future on the basis of conditions and requirements that are not fit for purpose," Mughal pointed out. He also drew attention to the fact that social networks should more strictly manage their content. "When people express such unacceptable opinions as the shooting of British blacks, or Jews are compared with cancer, it should be illegal," said Mughal.
It should be noted that the growth of insults on the internet has become a reflection of the growth of real attacks motivated by hatred. According to data of Metropolitan Police last year, the number of crimes against Muslims in the British capital increased by 65%.
