For the first time, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has unveiled the amount of hate speech on its social media platform.
Facebook has disclosed that out of every 10,000 content views in the third quarter of this year, 10 to 11 included hate speech. The world’s largest social media company released the hate speech estimate as part of its quarterly content moderation report.
Facebook said it took action on 22.1 million pieces of hate speech content in the third quarter, about 95% of which was proactively identified, compared to 22.5 million in the previous quarter. The company defines "taking action" as removing content, labeling it with a warning, disabling accounts, or escalating it to external agencies.
This summer, civil rights groups organized a widespread advertising boycott to try to pressure Facebook to act against hate speech. The company agreed to disclose the hate speech metric, calculated by examining a representative sample of content seen on Facebook, and submit itself to an independent audit of its enforcement record.
Facebook said that from March 1 to the November 3 election, the company removed more than 265,000 pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram in the United States for violating its voter interference policies.
In October, Facebook said it was updating its hate speech policy to ban content that denies or distorts the Holocaust, a turnaround from public comments Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg had made about what should be allowed on the social media platform.
Facebook said it took action on 19.2 million pieces of violent and graphic content in the third quarter, up from 15 million in the second. On Instagram, it took action on 4.1 million pieces of violent and graphic content, the company said.
