In an unprecedented effort to combat hate speech, Facebook will open its doors to French regulators to review how the company monitors racist, sexist or hateful content, Reuters reports.
“I’m delighted by this very innovative experimental approach,” French President Emmanuel Macron told the annual Internet Governance Forum in Paris on Monday. “It’s an experiment, but a very important first step in my view.”
Starting in January, Facebook will welcome a small team of civil servants from Macron’s administration to shadow Facebook’s checks on hate-fueled content. According to Reuters, the team may be drawn from the telecoms regulator and the interior and justice ministries. If the six-month trial embed proves successful, Macron hopes to expand the arrangement to other giants like Amazon, Apple and Google.
In May, Macron organized a summit in Paris for the world’s biggest tech executives, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, to discuss ways to work towards regulation and a “common good…