Facebook reports spike in takedowns of hate speech, terrorism

Published May 13, 2020
A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken on January 6. — Reuters
A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken on January 6. — Reuters

Facebook Inc on Tuesday reported a sharp increase in the number of posts it removed for promoting violence and hate speech across its applications, which it attributed to improvements made to its technology for automatically identifying text and images.

The world’s biggest social media company removed about 4.7 million posts connected to organised hate organisations on its flagship Facebook app in the first quarter of 2020, up from 1.6 million pieces of content in the previous quarter.

It also removed 9.6 million Facebook posts containing hate speech in the first quarter, compared with 5.7 million pieces of content in the fourth quarter of 2019.

Facebook released the data as part of its fifth Community Standards Enforcement Report, which it introduced in response to criticism of its lax approach to policing its platforms.

In a blog post announcing the data, Facebook said the company had improved its “proactive detection technology,” which uses artificial intelligence to detect violating content as it is posted, before other users can see it.

“We’re now able to detect text embedded in images and videos in order to understand its full context, and we’ve built media matching technology to find content that’s identical or near-identical to photos, videos, text and even audio that we’ve already removed,” the statement said.

The company also said it put warning labels on about 50 million pieces of content related to Covid-19, after announcing at the start of the pandemic that it was banning misinformation about the virus that could cause physical harm.

Opinion

Editorial

Smog hazard
Updated 05 Nov, 2024

Smog hazard

The catastrophe unfolding in Lahore is a product of authorities’ repeated failure to recognise environmental impact of rapid urbanisation.
Monetary policy
05 Nov, 2024

Monetary policy

IN an aggressive move, the State Bank on Monday reduced its key policy rate by a hefty 250bps to 15pc. This is the...
Cultural power
05 Nov, 2024

Cultural power

AS vital modes of communication, art and culture have the power to overcome social and international barriers....
Disregarding CCI
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Disregarding CCI

The failure to regularly convene CCI meetings means that the process of democratic decision-making is falling apart.
Defeating TB
04 Nov, 2024

Defeating TB

CONSIDERING the fact that Pakistan has the fifth highest burden of tuberculosis in the world as per the World Health...
Ceasefire charade
Updated 04 Nov, 2024

Ceasefire charade

The US talks of peace, while simultaneously arming and funding their Israeli allies, are doomed to fail, and are little more than a charade.