Facebook has denied charges that the social media platform is open to abuse by violent and terror outfits.
In an email response to Gulf News, the American social media conglomerate said that it removed more than 9.6 million pieces of inappropriate content in the first quarter of 2020.
“We do not allow any organisations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Facebook. In the first quarter of 2020 alone, we took action against 9.6 million pieces of content, up from 5.7 million in the previous quarter, with 99% of the ISIS (Daesh) and al Qaeda content taken down before it being reported to us,” a company spokesperson noted.
Notably Facebook has come under severe pressure in recent weeks after hundreds of companies around the world joined a temporary ad boycott of the social media behemoth.
Several top companies signed up to boycott Facebook after many civil rights groups called out the social network’s handling of hate speech and misinformation.
“We invest billions of dollars each year in people and technology to keep our platform safe — we now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security, and we remain a pioneer in artificial intelligence technology to remove hateful content at scale.
“We continue to make progress in this regard, with a recent European Commission report finding that Facebook assessed 95.7% of hate speech reports in less than 24 hours. We are getting better — but we are not complacent,” the company spokesperson added.
