Facebook teams up with Asia Foundation to combat online hate

FACEBOOK has launched 'The Resiliency Initiative' website to provide tools and resources to counter hate and intolerance on the internet.

Launched in partnership with The Asia Foundation, the new website "aims to promote tolerance, strengthen interfaith and inter-ethnic understanding, and counter violent extremism in Asia Pacific," Facebook said.

The Asia Foundation is a nonprofit international development organisation that brings together diverse partners from governments and local communities.

"This community-centred initiative began with online workshops for 60 organisations from Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Pakistan and the Philippines. The website is the next step in strengthening the community of practice," Facebook said in a blogpost.

‘The Resiliency Initiative' website provides a suite of tools and resources that will help civil society organisations in harnessing social media and building stronger communities, it said.

It also includes case studies with insights from communities across the region.

The website is currently available in English and will be launched in Bengali, Thai and Urdu in the coming weeks. It will be made available in more languages in the future, the statement said.

"At Facebook, we aim to identify and remove harmful content from our platforms as quickly as possible — and we've made good progress in this area. But this is just one part of the solution. It's equally important to enable constructive dialogue and encourage counter speech in order to promote social cohesion and counter offline harm," the blog said.

In the second half of the year, 'The Resiliency Initiative' will work with civil society organisations in Asia Pacific to develop their social resilience campaigns to combat hate online. It will also help in expanding the reach of the programme to new communities in the region.