In 2012 Facebook bought the photo-sharing site Instagram. The site has continued to grow as businesses discover it as a place to promote their products and services. The site has also attracted trolls and, with it, offensive and spam content. Now the mega photo-sharing site seeks to stop the offending content by using Artificial Intelligence.
Artificial intelligence used to block offensive comments
Variety reported that the technology Instagram is using goes way beyond simple keyword filters. Facebook may be using Instagram as a test site for using the same technology on Facebook.
CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom made the announcement in a blog post on the Instagram blog. Currently, the technology only detects offensive comments in English, but it is also being used to detect spam comments in other languages like Spanish, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Japanese, or Chinese.
The technology doesn't just look at the keywords that are used. It also looks at the context and relationships of the keywords too. Facebook developed the system and called it "DeepText." The social media giant has been under fire lately because of controversy over the content on its own site and hired thousands of human moderators to remove spam and offensive content. A spokesperson for Facebook stressed that, because the platforms are different and provide different user experiences, how comments and content are handled will be different.
Fighting spam and cruel comments
Fortune reported that Instagram believes this new technology may be used to fight trolls and offensive comments. Instagram deployed the new tools to fight the amount of spam it receives. The new tools that have been deployed will be used to stop spam and comments on both posts and live video.
Users have the option of whether or not to turn the filter on. Even if a user has the filter on and a comment appears that is out of line, the user has the option to report the comment.
The original technology for the filtering came from two filters built by Facebook. The difference in the technology between Facebook and Instagram is that the technology has been specifically trained for Instagram.
When Facebook bought Instagram, all Instagram's technology was moved to Facebook data centers. Instagram hired contractors to sift through offensive comments and spam and to recognize the distasteful content. Facebook did say that the technology wasn't the end-all and be-all for handling the problem.
Both Instagram and Facebook depend on human moderators to help keep both sites safe. Facebook has been busy developing its technology for its site as it faces a challenge from Apple on its message bots. Apple recently announced how the company will take advantage of artificial intelligence to build self-driving cars.
