Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, revealed that users of Facebook saw bullying or harassment 14 to 15 times out of every 10,000 views of content between July and September; the numbers for Instagram pertain to 5 to 6 times of every 10,000 users in the same time period. The report further revealed that the platforms took down or deleted 9.2 million pieces of such content on Facebook and 7.8 million posts on Instagram.
Meta’s vice president of Integrity, Guy Rosen, said, “The vast, vast, vast, vast majority of content on Facebook doesn’t violate our policies and is perfectly good content. It’s very difficult to know what is a bullying post or comment, and what is perhaps a lighthearted joke, without knowing the people involved or the nuance of the situation.”
This report comes after the revelations about how Facebook struggles to police hate speech and calls for violence, especially in non-English speaking countries, how Instagram worsens women’s body image issues, and how it degrades teens’ mental health.
These claims were made public by the whistleblower Frances Haugen along with thousands of pages of internal reports, presentations, and other documents with federal regulators. However, Meta has contested Haugen’s claim by showing that hate speech on social networks has dropped by more than half this year.
Moreover, the company also revealed that it has updated its AI, which now can detect different types of violations, which, in turn, will also curb hate speech online. Facebook will adopt new policies to address harassment targeting public figures.
It was only last month that Meta announced its new policies which are concerned with protecting users from harassment and that social media will also impose a ban on content that degrades or sexualizes public figures online. Furthermore, Facebook will also actively remove posts or content of coordinated intimidation and harassment campaigns.
