A Los Angeles-based human-rights group joined Gov. Bruce Rauner Thursday to announce a classroom initiative that will teach an anti-hate curriculum to Illinois students.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said "Tools for Tolerance for Teens" will be available for high schools to teach young people how to deal with and report racism and bigotry when they come across it on social media.

"We need to do more to protect our kids. Social media today dominates all of our lives. I saw one study where young people spend on average nine hours a day on social media," Cooper said. "Most of what goes on in social media is wonderful and fun, (but) ... extremists leverage these different technologies in order to promote nefarious agendas."

Cooper said social media networks have made it easier for hate groups to get their messages out.

"The internet didn't create hate, didn't create terrorism, didn't create anti-Semitism. But what social media has become is a soundboard, an echo chamber for the bigots and racists like David Duke who have been around forever," he said. "Also, the internet and social media has a way of empowering the lone wolf, individuals who have maybe been predisposed to violence finding when they go online that there are people like them all over the country, maybe all over the world."

Additionally, the Simon Wiesenthal Center presented Rauner with its 2017 Digital Terrorism and Hate Report Card.

The report gives grades to social media sites based on actions they've taken against hate speech and terrorism. For example, Facebook received an A-minus for preventing terrorism and a B-minus for preventing hate speech, while Twitter got a B-minus for preventing terrorism and a C for preventing hate speech. Snapchat's grade was incomplete at the time of the ranking.

Rauner is the first public official in the Midwest to receive the report, according to Cooper, and praised the state's efforts to halt hate speech.

"We're here because we're doing something. Illinois will not stay silent in the face of hate, bigotry and persecution," Rauner said. "Illinois is a leader in anti-hate education, and we will work with organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center to continue to lead by example."

In 1990, Illinois became the first state in the nation to require teaching of the Holocaust in all public elementary and high schools.

Asked about the price of the "Tools for Tolerance" program, Cooper said he doesn't believe it will be expensive.

"We're just starting this project. We have tried it in a number of schools around the United States," he said. "This shouldn't be an extraordinarily expensive undertaking, but it does take some training, and the way we're going to start is to start training some of the trainers in the Chicago area. If there is a way we could work statewide, we're available and we'll do anything that we can to help."

— Contact Brian Robbins: 782-3095, brian.robbins@sj-r.com, twitter.com/brianrobbins9.