Social media companies including Twitter, Facebook and Google have come under pressure from MPs for failing to take tougher action to tackle hate speech online.

The social media companies defended their current monitoring arrangements but said they had to rely on their users on a “notify and take down” basis to tackle the problem of online hate. The tech companies’ sheer scale meant it was impossible for them to conduct proactive searches for such material although they were trying to develop technology, including artificial intelligence, that could improve their response to the problem.

But the companies’ responses seemed only to intensify the anger of the MPs. When one company executive explained why a Holocaust denial tweet did not breach its guidelines one MP told the three executives that they were engaged in little more than “commercial prostitution” and said he would be ashamed to earn his money in the way they did.

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