Sir Elton John calls for social media boycott against homophobic hate speech

Sir Elton John has called for a boycott of social media platforms to pressure the companies into tackling hate speech.

In an interview with Newsnight, Sir Elton encouraged people to boycott social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter in order to force the platforms to address homophobic hate speech.

The veteran LGBT rights campaigner hit out at social media giants, saying they “haven’t done anything to try to stem the flow of hate on the internet.”

(Creative Commons)

He said: “I don’t know why they allow it – it’s supposed to be free speech but the things that are on social media are so disgusting that there has to be action taken by the people who own these companies.”

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He added: “‘People say ‘well what about my freedom of speech?’ Well, sod your freedom of speech.”

Sir Elton John gives the Diana, Princess of Wales lecture on HIV (Courtesy Harry Richards/National AIDS Trust)

Sir Elton then called directly for a boycott, stating: “Then they’ll sit up. When the money is not coming in they’ll sit up.

“They can do so much good, but first they have to clean house and become a much more moral and Christian thinking… a moral thinking compass for what’s going on in the world.

“At the moment they’re not doing that.”

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