Johannesburg - After receiving backlash for its policies that allowed inappropriate content, the world’s leading social media network Facebook finally tweaks its policies that will see blackface and anti-Semitic stereotypes taken off its platform.
The news surfaced after Facebook was lambasted by civil rights groups in recent months over concerns about the spread of hate speech and misinformation on its platform. Under pressure from activists, dozens of advertisers joined a boycott of Facebook's ad platform in the past two months, which saw the company lose millions in revenue.
According to Business Insider, the new policy is meant to remove offensive content that previously skirted Facebook's ban on hate speech and was made after consultation with outside experts, vice president of content policy Monika Bickert disclosed on Tuesday .
"This type of content has always gone against the spirit of our hate speech policy, but it can be really difficult to take concepts especially those that are commonly expressed in imagery and define them in a way that allows our content reviewers based around the world to consistently and fairly identify violations," Bickert said.
She added that the policy would not affect certain content with news value, like posts displaying a politician's use of blackface.
The company said on Tuesday that it has ramped up its artificial intelligence that detects hate speech 95% of the hate speech it removed between April and June was detected by its AI, up from 89% in the first quarter of 2020, according to its latest transparency report.
In recent months major companies such as Coca Cola, Microsoft and Starbucks paused their paid advertising on Facebook over hate speech on the platform.
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