(Image: file photo)
Facebook wants to combat the growing fake news problem by utilizing artificial intelligence, or AI, to detect fake news and other offensive content.
Yann LeCun, Facebook’s director of AI research, told reporters the social network is using “an algorithm that detects nudity, violence, or any of the things that are not according to our policies,” according to Reuters.
The AI is able to monitor video on Facebook Live and flag it, if offensive content is found. The social network also has an automation process to sift through the “tens of million of reports” of offensive content on a weekly basis.
LeCun told Reuters he sees two hurdles that have to be met: “One, your computer vision algorithm has to be fast, and I think we can push there, and the other one is you need to prioritize things in the right way so that a human looks at it, an expert who understands our policies, and takes it down.”
Facebook has been under scrutiny this year for the spread of fake news across its platform. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in November that Facebook is taking steps to curb the spread of inaccurate and offensive posts by stronger detection to classify misinformation, easier reporting for users to catch misinformation faster, third-party fact checking, and more.