Facebook think ISIS could be banished from their site if more people like the terrorist organisation’s pages.
According to Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, users of the social media platform should launch a digital war against ISIS which could include joining extremists’ pages and writing kind messages.
The Independent reported that Ms Sandberg highlighted the example of a German neo-Nazi page that activists flooded with likes and positive messages until they had overrun the page.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ms Sandberg said:
What was a page filled with hatred and intolerance was then tolerance and messages of hope. The best antidote to bad speech is good speech and the best antidote to hate is tolerance.
She believes if people use the same tactics on pages for ISIS supporters and recruiters it could have the same discouraging effect.
Ms Sandberg also thinks the best people to speak against the extremists are those who have been recruited by them:
[They] understand what the true experience is, have escaped and have come back to tell the truth.
According to the Independent, Facebook launched a £775,000 campaign to stop hate speech and extremism this week.
Google has also revealed they are making plans to shut extremists out of the internet, forcing their pages to become undiscoverable and stopping them from being able to recruit.
