Facebook has published its Community Standards Enforcement Report for the first quarter of 2021, detailing the social media platform’s efforts in curbing hate speech and limiting the spread of misinformation.
According to the data, the amount of hate speech on Facebook is now actually decreasing, now accounting for around five to six views per 10,000 views.
Improvements to AI technology that can detect hate speech has helped regulate hate speech, said Facebook’s VP Integrity Guy Rosen.
“When we first began reporting our metrics on hate speech in Q4 of 2017, our proactive detection rate was 23.6%. This means that of the hate speech we removed, 23.6% of it was found before a user reported it to us. The remaining majority of it was removed after a user reported it. Today we proactively detect about 97% of hate speech content we remove,” he said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic still very much dominating headlines around the world, keeping misinformation off the platform remains a strategic priority for Facebook.
Rosen revealed Facebook has removed 18 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram globally for violating policies on COVID-19-related misinformation and harm since the beginning of the pandemic last year.
As attention turns to vaccinating, Facebook is also looking at how it can encourage people to get the jab while still curtailing the spread of misinformation on the platform.
As well as removing content which breaches the company’s standards, Facebook is also making efforts to hide content that is deemed dissuasive about vaccines.
“For certain content that does not break these rules, but could still discourage someone from getting vaccinated, we reduce its distribution on Facebook and remove it from recommendations on Facebook and Instagram,” the company said in a statement.
