Contrite Facebook executives seek to ward off more European rules

Reacting out of fear: Some experts feel that Europe's policies regulating American tech companies are excessive and merely an exercise in buying time until they can catch up to the likes of Google, Facebook and Amazon.

MUNICH: Facebook executives are fanning out across Europe this week to address the social media giant’s slow response to abuses on its platform, seeking to avoid further legislation along the lines of a new hate speech law in Germany it says goes too far. 

Facebook's communications and public policy chief used an annual meeting in Munich of some of Europe and Silicon Valley's tech elite to apologize for failing to do more, earlier, to fight hate speech and foreign influence campaigns on Facebook.