Facebook and Instagram remove a combined 18 million pieces of content globally from their sites

Facebook and Instagram have removed a combined 18 million pieces of content globally for violating its policies on Covid-related misinformation and harm since the start of the pandemic, the social media giant said in the latest edition of its Community Standards Enforcement Report (CSER). There is no country specific data.

The CSER covers violations across 12 Facebook policies and 10 Instagram policies, including hate speech, bullying and harassment, adult nudity and sexual activity.
According to the social media giant, 9.8 million pieces of organized hate content was removed from Facebook between January and March, up from 6.4 million in the previous quarter. On photo sharing platform, Instagram, 324,500 pieces of content were actioned.

Additionally, Facebook took action against 8.8 million pieces of “bullying and harassment content” on its main site and 5.5 million similar posts on Instagram.

Facebook released a blog explaining the report, and claimed that advancement in artificial intelligence technology has helped the company remove hate speech proactively. “When the company first began reporting its hate speech metrics, in the fourth quarter of 2017, its proactive detection rate was 23.6%—meaning that 23.6% of hate speech content was removed before being reported by users—and that number is now up to roughly 97%,” Facebook’s Vice President of Integrity, Guy Rosen.

The social media giant also said it took action against 31.8 million pieces of content for violating its policies on Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity. It also acted against 5 million pieces of content under its Child Nudity policies.