Social-Media
In the midst of Indian state polls, Facebook ramps up its efforts to counter hate speech.
As part of its efforts to combat the spread of misinformation during elections in four Indian states, Facebook is taking a number of steps, including limiting the dissemination of material considered to be hate speech.
Facebook would also limit the dissemination of content from accounts that have recently and consistently violated the company's rules, according to a blog post published on Tuesday by the social media giant.
"We recognise that there are certain types of content, such as hate speech, that could lead to imminent, offline harm...To decrease the risk of problematic content going viral in these states and potentially inciting violence ahead of or during the election, we will significantly reduce the distribution of content that our proactive detection technology identifies as likely hate speech or violence and incitement," it added.
In the past, Facebook has been chastised for its handling of hate speech on its platform in the world. India is one of Facebook's most important markets, along with its subsidiary companies WhatsApp and Instagram. According to government statistics, India has 53 million WhatsApp users, 41 million Facebook users, and 21 million Instagram users.
The business, based in the United States, said it has made substantial investments in proactive detection technology to help identify illegal content more quickly.
Facebook said in a blog post that it is taking steps to improve civic participation, fight hate speech, restrict misinformation, and remove voter intimidation during elections in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, and Puducherry, based on lessons learned from previous elections in India and around the world.
"We also continue to closely partner with election authorities, including to set up a high priority channel to remove content that breaks our rules or is against local law after receiving valid legal orders," it said.
Facebook stated that such slurs that it deems to be hate speech are removed under its current Community Standards.
"To complement that effort, we may deploy technology to identify new words and phrases associated with hate speech, and either remove posts with that language or reduce their distribution," it added.
