FB enlists AI, human experts in new push against terror

Bloomberg

Facebook Inc. has hired more than 150 counterterrorism experts and is increasingly using artificial intelligence that can understand language and analyze images to try to keep terrorists from using the social network for recruiting and propaganda.
Monika Bickert, director of global policy management, and Brian Fishman, counterterrorism policy manager, outlined aspects of Facebook’s latest efforts in a post to a new blog the company. The blog, called “Hard Questions,” will address philosophical debates about the role of social media in society, from what should happen to a person’s digital history after they die to whether social media is good for democracy. The first post addresses how the company responds to the spread of terrorism online.
“We agree with those who
say that social media should not be a place where terrorists have a voice,” Bickert and Fishman write.
The move comes as Facebook is being hounded by governments to do more to combat terrorism. Following attacks in London and Manchester in the past four months, UK Prime Minister Theresa May pressed other leaders from the Group of Seven nations to consider further regulation of social media companies to compel them to take additional steps against extremist content.
Bickert and Fishman acknowledge this pressure in their post, writing that “in the wake of recent terrorist attacks, people have questioned the role of tech companies in fighting terrorism online.”

Positive Force
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has also been trying to position the company as a positive force for building communities both online and off. This new emphasis from Zuckerberg has followed uproar over Facebook’s role in the proliferation of false news accounts during the US election campaign last year, as well as the spread of extreme content, such as videos of murder, posted to Facebook.
“Although academic research finds that the radicalization of members of groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda primarily occurs offline, we know that the internet does play a role — and we don’t want Facebook to be used for any terrorist activity whatsoever,” Bickert and Fishman write.
Over the past year Facebook has increased its team of counterterrorism experts and now has more than 150 people primarily dedicated to that role. Many of these people have backgrounds in law enforcement and they collectively speak almost 30 languages. In addition, Facebook has thousands of employees and contractors around the world that respond to reports of violations of its terms of service, whether that’s online bullying, posting porn or hate speech.