Muslim World League Launches #RejectHate Campaign to End Islamophobia on Social Media

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Mar 24, 2021, 10:41 ET

MAKKAH, Saudi Arabia, March 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The Muslim World League launched Wednesday the #RejectHate campaign to end Islamophobic content and hate speech on social media. The campaign, which invites supporters to sign a change.org petition, urges social media companies to adopt stronger anti-Islamophobic policies as part of their anti-hate regulations. In October of last year, both Facebook and Twitter announced that they would remove posts that deny the Holocaust, but have yet to adopt anti-hate policies that address other religious groups.

In recent months, Facebook and Twitter have introduced several rules purportedly designed to combat hate and bigotry on their platforms. Despite these new regulations, both companies continue to allow purveyors of Islamophobic content to spread hateful and false characterizations of the Islamic faith and the more than 1.8 billion Muslims around the world.

Currently on Facebook, 1 in every 1,000 posts shared violates the company's rules on hate speech. More than three-quarters of content which violates their anti-hate rules is allowed to remain even after it is reported and investigated, giving a free pass for content targeting any group to be proliferated through Facebook. Twitter boasts similar statistics. The MWL is calling for a zero-tolerance policy towards hate speech targeting Muslims or adherents to any religion and more robust procedures to see hateful content quickly removed.

"There are prevailing voices that only represent the hateful outlook of extremism and isolation that are being amplified on social media," MWL Secretary General His Excellency Sheikh Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa said. "Social media has the power to bring people together across physical boundaries, but in recent years we have seen it become a breeding ground for hatred and intolerance."

The Muslim World League is a Makkah-based non-governmental organization that represents adherents of the Islamic faith around the world. His Excellency Sheikh Dr. Mohammad bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa has led the organization since 2016. He is widely recognized as a leading global voice on moderate Islam, committed to bringing global awareness to the religion's true message of empathy, understanding and cooperation among all people. As Secretary-General, Dr. Al-Issa has travelled extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia, meeting with dignitaries and parliamentarians from the fields of justice, law and human rights, as well as major faith-based and community leaders. In January 2019, he became the most senior Islamic leader to visit Auschwitz as part of a joint MWL-AJC visit to Jewish historical and cultural sites in Poland.

SOURCE Muslim World League