Commissioner of Police (CP) Mohamed Hameed has stated that there are over 4,000 websites and pages on social media platforms that promote extremism and hate speech in the Maldives.

CP Hameed made the comments while speaking at the press conference by Home Ministry at Iskandhar Koshi on Wednesday.

He noted that there are multiple challenges in identifying who runs these pages as well as putting a stop to the spread of hate speech and extremism online.

"The reality today is that hate speech and extremism is promoted online more than on a physical space. Online spaces are used to spread these ideologies and discuss attacks and create networks with terrorist organisations," CP Hameed said.

He further added that additional effort has been put to stop terrorism and hate speech in the past year despite the challenges. CP Hameed said tackling extremism is third on the Police priority list,