AN East Lancashire community worker has called for social media companies to do more to tackle hate crime online.

Faz Patel, who advises the government on community cohesion and was awarded an MBE, said companies like Twitter, Facebook and Google should act quicker to take things off their sites if they are deemed to be hate speech.

Mr Patel. who met with members of the government last year to discuss the issue, was speaking out after a Home Affairs Select Committee report found firms are ‘shamefully far’ from tackling illegal and dangerous content.

Mr Patel said: “There are a lot of disturbing images of children being groomed and examples of hate speech.

“The social media companies need to work with the government.

“The internet is a huge platform. There has to be a strict filtering policy.

“Anything that promotes hatred should be taken down and there should be a mechanism for them to report it faster.

“Any form of hate crime should not be tolerated and should be taken down immediately.”