Facebook Inc said it is taking steps to combat hate speech and misinformation in India to curb the spread of misinformation during elections in four Indian states.
“We recognize that there are certain types of content, such as hate speech, that can lead to imminent offline harm. To reduce the risk of problematic content going viral in these states and possibly before or during.” “We will significantly reduce the spread of content that our proactive detection technology identifies as likely hate speech or violence and incitement,” she added.
Facebook has been targeted worldwide for alleged flaws in controlling hate speech. In the US, the social media giant has frozen political, election and social ads for months to combat misinformation and abuse related to the November 3rd presidential election.
Facebook has in the past pulled flak for its handling of hate speech on the platform in the country. India is one of the largest markets for Facebook and its group companies WhatsApp and Instagram. According to the government, India has 53 million WhatsApp users, 41 million Facebook users and 21 million Instagram users.
The US-based company says it has invested heavily in proactive detection technology to help it identify violations more quickly.
On its blog, Facebook said, based on the lessons it learned from previous elections in India and around the world, it is taking steps to improve civic engagement, combat hate speech, limit misinformation and suppress voters in Tamil elections Nadu, West Bengal, Assam, to be eliminated. Kerala and Puducherry.
“To reduce the risk of problematic content going viral in these states and potentially leading to violence before or during the elections, we will significantly reduce the distribution of content that our proactive detection technology identifies as likely hate speech or violence and incitement,” said Facebook.
It also designed election day reminders to give voters accurate information and encourage them to share it with friends on Facebook and WhatsApp, the company said.
In 2019, under the leadership of the industry association IAMAI, Facebook and the Indian Electoral Commission (ECI) set up a high-priority channel for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp in order to receive content-related escalations.
The company also works with outside fact checkers around the world, including eight partners in India, to give people additional context about the content they see on Facebook.
In addition to English, these eight partners verify the facts in 11 Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, and Assamese.
When a fact checker rates a story as false, that content will be flagged and displayed lower in the news feed, significantly reducing its circulation.
This will stop its spread and reduce the number of people who see it, Facebook said.
