Facebook’s net result on the world has been an overall positive in a wide variety of ways and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that they have managed to make it so that they can provide a lot of benefits to people when it comes to connecting as well as communicating with one another, something that is not all that likely to happen in situations where social media platforms are not widely available to as many people as possible.
However, with all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that Facebook also has its fair share of problems. One of them has to do with the fact that there is a lot of hate speech as well as misinformation on the platform. This is something that is bound to happen when you create a forum where so many people are able to say more or less whatever they want and get people to follow them in the process creating entire networks based around misinformation or hateful rhetoric.
As far as misinformation is concerned, this is the sort of thing that has the potential to be even more dangerous given the pandemic that we are currently going through at this point in time. Misinformation surrounding covid-19 can be disastrous, which is why Facebook is so adamant about clamping down on it.
So far Facebook has done a variety of things that are meant to make it so that hate speech and misinformation becomes a lot less widespread on its platform, but another thing that it has managed to do is to make it so that it can utilize AI for this purpose. The main benefit of AI is that it can automatically detect posts that fall into these categories and remove them.
However, there are a few problems associated with AI as well, and a lot of these problems have to do with the fact that AI is at the end of the day a machine and it can make mistakes that were a part of its original programming. The fact of the matter is that Facebook has optimized a lot of the AI that it is using, to the point where now the AI and algorithm that is used is much better at detecting nuances in language.
These are details that Facebook published in its quarterly report, and they shed quite a bit of light on the kind of progress that has been made in this regard. It will be exciting to see what direction this progress moves in as we move forward during this pandemic.
Read next: Social Comparison: Is it healthy?
However, with all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that Facebook also has its fair share of problems. One of them has to do with the fact that there is a lot of hate speech as well as misinformation on the platform. This is something that is bound to happen when you create a forum where so many people are able to say more or less whatever they want and get people to follow them in the process creating entire networks based around misinformation or hateful rhetoric.
As far as misinformation is concerned, this is the sort of thing that has the potential to be even more dangerous given the pandemic that we are currently going through at this point in time. Misinformation surrounding covid-19 can be disastrous, which is why Facebook is so adamant about clamping down on it.
So far Facebook has done a variety of things that are meant to make it so that hate speech and misinformation becomes a lot less widespread on its platform, but another thing that it has managed to do is to make it so that it can utilize AI for this purpose. The main benefit of AI is that it can automatically detect posts that fall into these categories and remove them.
However, there are a few problems associated with AI as well, and a lot of these problems have to do with the fact that AI is at the end of the day a machine and it can make mistakes that were a part of its original programming. The fact of the matter is that Facebook has optimized a lot of the AI that it is using, to the point where now the AI and algorithm that is used is much better at detecting nuances in language.
These are details that Facebook published in its quarterly report, and they shed quite a bit of light on the kind of progress that has been made in this regard. It will be exciting to see what direction this progress moves in as we move forward during this pandemic.
Read next: Social Comparison: Is it healthy?
