Facebook will have AI tools within 5 to 10 years to detect hate speech
The system will automatically flag and remove terrorist propaganda and harmful content before they appear, Mark Zuckerberg tells Congress
Facebook will have AI tools to automatically flag and remove hate speech before it appears within five to ten years, says the firm's CEO.
Mark Zuckerberg appeared on Tuesday before Congress to address mounting concerns raised in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, from user privacy to targeted ads.
Latest estimates suggest more than 87 million users may have had their data mined by the Trump affiliated consultancy firm through the 'This Is Your Digital Life' quiz.
Among the topics under discussion on Capitol Hill yesterday was Facebook's handling of extreme content.
Zuckerberg says the company has already developed intelligent software tools to root out terrorist propaganda and will continue to develop them for hate speech.
The company hopes to have 20,000 employees working to review security and content issues by the end of 2018, he added.
Zuckerberg made the comments during testimony before a joint hearing with the Senate judiciary and commerce committees.
Nearly all ISIS and al Qaeda content that is removed from Facebook is flagged before 'any human sees it', he claimed.
'That’s a success in terms of rolling out AI tools that can proactively police and enforce safety across the community,' Zuckerberg added.
'Hate speech, I am optimistic that over a five to ten year period we'll have AI tools that can get into some of the nuances, the linguistic nuances of different types of content to be more accurate in flagging things for our systems, but today is just not there on that.'
Commerce committee chairman John Thune asked the billionaire about the difficulties facing his firm in distinguishing between legitimate debate and hate speech.
The Menlo Park company's boss said that creating technology to tackle hate speech is more of a challenge than other forms of problematic content.
'Some problems lend themselves more easily to AI solutions than others,' Zuckerberg said.
'Hate speech is one of the hardest, because determining if something is hate speech is very linguistically nuanced.
'You need to understand what is a slur and whether something is hateful, not just in English, but a majority of people on Facebook use it in languages that are different across the world.'
The Facebook CEO also confirmed that the social network isn't planning on charging its users for the service just yet.
Among the many issues discussed in the hearing, senators hounded Zuckerberg on the possibility that the firm might require users to pay if they wish to use an ad-free Facebook.
The rumours were sparked by COO Sheryl Sandberg's comments last week, made during an interview with Today, that an ad-free Facebook 'would be a paid product.'
But, according to Zuckerberg, Facebook will always be free – or at least, some version of it will.
'There will always be a version of Facebook that is free,' Zuckerberg said during the hearing.
'It is our mission to try to help connect everyone around the world and bring everyone around the world closer together.
'In order to do that, we believe we need to offer a version that everyone can afford.'
During the hearing, Zuckerberg was asked repeatedly about the firm's business model, and what it might mean for users who do not want have their data shared or see targeted ads.
'Are you considering having Facebook users pay for you not to use that information?' Senator Bill Nelson asked the CEO.
But for now, Zuckerberg says this is not the firm's plan, insisting 'We want to offer a free service.'
Currently, the Facebook CEO pointed out, users have 'control over how their information is used,' with the option to turn off third-party information.
But, this means the ads it shows you may no longer be relevant to your interests.
Based on 'overwhelming feedback from community,' however, Zuckerberg says the firm found that 'people would rather have ads that are relevant than not.'
'What Sheryl was saying is that in order to not run ads at all, we would still needs some sort of business model,' Zuckerberg added.
When pressed on what the business model would be in an entirely ad-free scenario, though, the Facebook CEO confirmed that this would mean users have to pay for that experience.
'So I'm going to have to pay you' not to share information with advertisers, the senator clarified.
'Yes that's correct,' Zuckerberg said.
'But to be clear we don't offer an option today to pay to not be shown ads.'
In a later grilling by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, Zuckerberg doubled down on his statement.
When asked by Hatch how the firm could maintain a free service moving forward, the Facebook CEO said curtly: 'We run ads.'
In the hours-long hearing, Zuckerberg insisted that the firm will be stepping up its efforts to protect users' personal data.
The Facebook CEO said he is 'committed to getting this right,' after acknowledging that it was a mistake not to notify the millions of affected users back in 2015 that their data had been compromised when the firm first learned of Cambridge Analytica's activity.
According to Zuckerberg, the firm had 'considered it a closed case' after it first took action against Cambridge Analytica and 'demanded' both they and the app developer delete the data.
'They told us that they had,' Zuckerberg said.
'In retrospect it was a mistake that we didn't audit them,' the Facebook CEO added, when pressed on the issue.