Facebook boosts artificial intelligence to block terrorist propaganda



Companies have sharply boosted the volume of content they have removed in the last two years, but these efforts haven’t proven effective enough to tamp down a groundswell of criticism from governments and advertisers. They have accused Facebook, Google parent Alphabet Inc. and others of complacency over the proliferation of inappropriate content—in particular, posts or videos deemed as extremist propaganda or communication—on their social networks.

In response, Facebook disclosed new software that it says it is using to better police its content. One tool, in use for several months now, combs the site for known terrorist imagery, like beheading videos, in order to stop them from being reposted, executives said Thursday. Another set of algorithms attempts to identify—and sometimes autonomously block—propagandists from opening new accounts after they have already been kicked off the platform. Another experimental tool uses A.I. that has been trained to identify language used by terrorist propagandists.

This story originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal.