Facebook Officials Assure They Only Agreed To Work On Racial Violence And Hate Speech As Per Community Standards

Officials from Facebook Inc. who visited Sri Lanka yesterday have assured that they only agree to work on racial violence and hate speech as per their published Community Standards. 

"They have not engaged with the government on anything else that does not meet their Community Standards criteria," Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, a Sri Lankan social media user who engaged with the Facebook team, posted on Facebook.

On the contrary, President Maithripala Sirisena announced yesterday that the Facebook officials agreed to act on hate-speech and "misuse of the platform" by Sri Lankan social media users. 

The term "misuse of social media" raised concerns among Sri Lankan social media users as they expressed doubts whether the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration had asked the social media giant to take down posts critical of the government.

It is in this context that a group of Sri Lankan social media users had a telephone conversation with the Facebook Inc. team visiting Colombo.