Social media giant Facebook yesterday announced that it had removed over 22 million hate speech posts in the second quarter of 2020 for sharing false information about the novel coronavirus.
Following backlash over its slow approach to policing content on its platforms, Facebook, in 2018 began to release Independent Audit Community Standards Enforcement Report outlining data on how it enforces policies on content that violates its community standards.
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According to its latest data release, Facebook said it removed about 22.5 million posts with hate speech on its flagship app in the second quarter of 2020, which is an increase from 9.6 million in the first quarter, attributing the jump to improvements in detection technology.
The social media giant also said that it deleted 8.7 million posts connected to terrorist organisations, compared with 6.3 million in the prior period. It however, took down less material from "organised hate" groups, 4 million compared to 4.7 million in the first quarter.
Facebook said that it relied more heavily on automation for reviewing content starting in April due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, less action against content related to self-harm and child sexual exploitation.
"It's graphic content that honestly at home it's very hard for people to moderate, with people around them," Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president for integrity said.
Facebook said that it would invite proposals from experts this week to audit the metrics used in the report, beginning in 2021,
"This week, we are issuing a Request For Proposal (RFP) to external auditors to conduct an independent audit of these metrics," Vishwanath Sarang, Facebook Technical Program Manager, Integrity said. "We hope to conduct this audit starting in 2021 and have the auditors publish their assessments once completed."