Facebook accused of not removing hate speech in complaint under Australia’s racial discrimination laws

Facebook accused of not removing hate speech in complaint under Australia’s racial discrimination laws

Facebook is facing a complaint under Australia's Racial Discrimination Act that the company is not doing enough to moderate against hate speech.The Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (Aman) announced on Wednesday it had lodged a complaint under sections nine and 18(c) of the act with the Australian Human Rights Commission over what the group says is Facebook's failure to rein in hateful speech on its platform.The complaint alleges Facebook allows pages that state they are “anti-Islam” but host hateful content about Middle Eastern, African, South Asian and Asian people.Guardian Australia understands the organisation had been in discussions with Facebook about its policy for a year, and the source of frustration that led to the complaint from the organisation was the need to report violating content themselves, rather than Facebook proactively removing it.“Our concern is that Facebook only takes action when the community does the heavy lifting in documenting the violations and is prepared to escalate through media,” Aman adviser Rita Jabri-Markwell said in a statement.“Our community has experienced many attacks on mosques, as well as on individuals and families going about their lives.“But it's not only Muslims who are affected. Research has clearly shown anti-Muslim populist movements online have been the