Facebook pulled out 1.9 mn pieces of extremist content in Q1 of 2018

“We’ve made significant strides finding and removing (Isis and Al-Qaeda) propaganda quickly and at scale,” the Facebook blog post said.

Terrorist groups and hate organisations are banned from Facebook and it takes down any content that praises these outfits, any of their actions, or members. “Because we want to encourage counterspeech and the flow of information, we allow posts that explicitly condemn the organisations or report on their activity,” it said.

The leading social media network has been facing pressures from western governments, especially in the European Union and the US, calling for withdrawal of extremist content. The governments have warned Facebook that its failure to follow the norms against extremists would force them to act.

“In addition to our team of content reviewers, we use artificial intelligence and machine-learning to detect and remove terrorist content,” claimed Facebook. “And we partner with other technology companies to ensure that content found and removed from Facebook does not crop up elsewhere on the internet.”

The company said that people should be able to share their views and discuss controversial ideas on Facebook. “That’s why our policies allow people to criticise, and even condemn, religious institutions or political parties. But we draw the line when the focus shifts to individuals or groups of people. 

"We don’t allow direct attacks based on what we call protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disability or disease.”