Four of the internet's biggest companies have signed up to a new EU code of conduct pledging to do more to shut down online hate speech.  

According to the guidelines, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube will strive to remove all hateful comments within 24 hours of them being uploaded. 

The internet giants have also pledged to fast-track the flagging of hate speech by civil society organisations identified as 'trusted reporters', as well as to promote "independent counter-narratives" to hate speech. 

Although Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms already had hate speech policies and community guidelines in place, this code of conduct will standardise the reporting process while laying out a baseline of best practices for other platforms to follow. 

Hate speech has become a massive problem for social media platforms. Last year, Twitter's then-CEO Dick Costolo wrote a memo saying he was "frankly ashamed" of how the network had failed to shut down hate speech. Over the subsequent 12 months, Twitter took down 125,000 terror-related accounts. 

An AI bot Microsoft launched on Twitter last March spent less than 24 hours online after users taught the bot how to hurl racial insults at users. 

Media platforms such as Times of Malta are forced to confront hate speech on a daily basis. An article uploaded yesterday of a photo of a man cradling a migrant baby who died at sea attracted a series of hateful comments within minutes of being uploaded. 

Some of the Facebook comments uploaded by Times of Malta readers yesterday.

"Social media is unfortunately one of the tools that terrorist groups use to radicalise young people and racists use to spread violence and hatred," said EU Justice Commissioner Vĕra Jourová. "This agreement is an important step forward to ensure that the internet remains a place of free and democratic expression."

"There’s no place for hate speech on Facebook," said its head of global policy management Monika Bickert. "We urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate."