Impossible to weed out hate content completely : Facebook

Facebook

San Francisco, June 21 – With the growing debate around spread of violence and crime-related content on Facebook, a top executive of the social media giant has said that it is impossible to completely weed out such content from the platform.

“Our policy is zero tolerance — that doesn’t mean zero occurrence,” a report in CNBC on Tuesday quoted Carolyn Everson, Global Head (Sales) Facebook, as saying.

There have been several incidents on Facebook where Live videos broadcast murders, rapes, suicides and other crimes.

Facebook has been criticised for not doing enough to prevent videos showing violent incidents, including a murder in Cleveland, Ohio, and a killing of a baby in Thailand, from spreading on the social network.

“There are bad things that are going to happen. That is reality. That is life. Facebook is a reflection of that life. It is our job to make the community as safe as possible,” Everson said.

The social media giant has created a “blacklist” for websites that includes content which will not be allowed to advertise in-stream during videos, on Instant Articles and through its Audience Network of websites it serves ads to.

The brands can also opt out of advertising on certain videos.

“Facebook is a safe place for brands, let me start there. The second thing I would say is we have zero tolerance, zero tolerance for hate speech and terrorism. There is no place for any of that on our platforms, and we have already made a commitment,” Everson noted.

Facebook has announced continued investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to identify offensive posts. The company relies on its 1.9 billion users to report offensive content.

The company announced last month that it will be hiring 3,000 additional employees over the next year to monitor content and remove violent videos from its platform.

Facebook has also taken measures to stop fake news on its platform by introducing several fact-checking tools.