Facebook defends policies on hate speech amid ad pullback

Dozens of brands are putting their social media advertising budgets on hold in a condemnation of divisive and racist content aimed particularly at Facebook and Instagram. — Bay Area News Group/TNS

Facebook Inc defended its policies on hate speech amid an advertising boycott to push the social media company to do more.

“We have industry leading record in how we deal with dark side of the Internet,” said Nick Clegg, vice president for global affairs, in an interview on Bloomberg Television Monday. Facebook has developed the world’s most sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence systems to root out hate speech and misinformation, he said.