Summary In November, the FBI said U.S. hate crimes jumped 17% in 2017 with a 37% spike in anti-Semitic attac
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Facebook and Google on Tuesday defended their efforts to remove hate speech from social media sites amid questions from lawmakers in an appearance before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, who chairs the panel, said white nationalist groups target communities of color and religious minorities through social media.
Social media firms use algorithms and human reviewers to remove hateful speech.
Neil Potts, a public policy director at Facebook, told lawmakers that Facebook in March "instituted a prohibition on praise, support, and representation of white nationalism and white separatism."
Google wants to be a "part of the solution," company executive Alexandria Walden said at Tuesday’s hearing, adding that Google has invested "heavily in machines and people to quickly identify and remove content that violates our policies against incitement to violence and hate speech."
In November, the FBI said U.S. hate crimes jumped 17 percent in 2017, with a 37 percent spike in anti-Semitic attacks.
