Facebook settles with content moderators

Facebook Inc. has agreed to pay $52 million to settle a lawsuit by content moderators who alleged they suffered psychological scars from repeated exposure to disturbing material including images of child sex abuse and terrorism, according to a statement issued by lawyers for the plaintiffs.

Facebook also announced it has removed 2.5 million posts since March 1 offering masks, sanitizers, cleaning wipes and COVID-19 test kits, in an attempt to prevent users from pricegouging or selling counterfeit and dangerous products.

Facebook has had to quickly train its artificial intelligence to handle an increase in coronavirus content that violates company policies, including hundreds of thousands of posts removed for displaying information that could lead to physical harm, like encouraging users to drink bleach as a cure.

Facebook said in the first quarter of 2020, it removed 1.7 billion fake accounts, 39.5 million instances of adult nudity and 7.9

million posts touting illegal drugs.