Facebook To Combat Hate Speech in Germany - Should Social Media Sites Be More Proactive in Response to Racist Messages?

Germany has recently offered asylum to many Syrian refugees and in light of this Germany and Facebook have agreed to combat hate speech against immigrants posted on Facebook. Specifically, Facebook will work with the ministry of justice, internet service providers, and other social networks to form a task force that will flag and remove hateful content more quickly. This article brings up the role of social media in the discussion of controversial topics - Facebook is quoted as welcoming "political debate on [its] platform." 

For the most part, the social media platforms have remained partisan in political issues and have instead acted as areas for the public to display freedom of expression. These sites do provide some regulation without censoring their users - allowing users to "flag" content thought to be inappropriate for review and removal if necessary. However, the German government alleges Facebook is not effectively putting a stop to racist posts and comments, despite being flagged.

Should social media websites take a more proactive role in responding to racist and sexist comments/posts on their sites? And should individual government's work with Facebook to protect their citizens?

And if these sites do take on a more proactive role to eradicate hate speech, will many of its users begin to fear that they aren't able to express themselves freely?

Read more here: http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/15/facebook-agrees-to-do-more-to-help-combat-hate-speech-in-germany/