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Facebook has taken a fresh swipe at other Silicon Valley tech giants during a speech from its Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg in Germany.

Sandberg provided this reassurance during the opening of the Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt, Germany in the presence of the world's biggest automakers.

Although this appeared as a comical statement at the time, it would have played a huge role in reassuring the automakers present that Facebook has no intentions of competing with them.

"I come with very good news. We're the only company in Silicon Valley that's not building a car," Sandberg said to laughter and applause at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt motor show, where she met German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Sandberg's visit to Germany comes after the country's parliament passed a law in June to introduce fines of up to 50 million euros ($59 million) for social media networks if they fail to remove hateful postings promptly.

Facebook also said on Wednesday it would step up its monitoring of hate speech, adding 3,000 content reviewers to nearly double the size of its existing team.

"We take our responsibility to the people who use our products, to the countries in which we work like Germany, to society at large, very seriously," Sandberg said on Thursday.