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E-Business

Facebook Releases May 2020 Community Standards Enforcement Report

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Facebook has published the fifth edition of its Community Standards Enforcement Report, providing metrics on how well it enforced its policies from October 2019 through March 2020.

Announcing the report in a Facebook Newsroom post, Guy Rosen, Vice President, Integrity said the company has in the last few years built tools, teams and technologies to help protect elections from interference, prevent misinformation from spreading on its apps and keep people safe from harmful content.

“So when the COVID-19 crisis emerged, we had the tools and processes in place to move quickly and we were able to continue finding and removing content that violates our policies.

“When we temporarily sent our content reviewers home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we increased our reliance on these automated systems and prioritized high-severity content for our teams to review in order to continue to keep our apps safe during this time,” he said.

The report, he said, includes data only through March 2020, so it does not reflect the full impact of the changes the company made during the pandemic.

“We anticipate we’ll see the impact of those changes in our next report, and possibly beyond, and we will be transparent about them.

“For example, for the past seven weeks we couldn’t always offer the option to appeal content decisions and account removals, so we expect the number of appeals to be much lower in our next report.

“We also prioritized removing harmful content over measuring our efforts, so we may not be able to calculate the prevalence of violating content during this time. Today’s report shows the impact of advancements we’ve made in the technology we use to proactively find and remove violating content,” Rosen said.

For the first time, the report includes metrics across 12 policies on Facebook and metrics across 10 policies on Instagram. The report introduces Instagram data in four issue areas, namely: Hate Speech, Adult Nudity and Sexual Activity, Violent and Graphic Content, and Bullying and Harassment.

Also for the first time, the report shared data on the number of appeals people make on content the company took action against on Instagram, and the number of decisions overturned either based on those appeals or when it identifies the issue on its own. The report also contains data on Facebook’s efforts to combat organized hate on Facebook and Instagram.

Highlights the progress the company has made so far in finding and removing violating content, Rosen said Facebook has improved its technology that proactively finds violating content, which helped in the removal of more violating content so fewer people saw it.

Said Rosen: “On Facebook, we continued to expand our proactive detection technology for hate speech to more languages, and improved our existing detection systems.

“Our proactive detection rate for hate speech increased by more than 8 points over the past two quarters totalling almost a 20-point increase in just one year.

“As a result, we are able to find more content and can now detect almost 90% of the content we remove before anyone reports it to us. In addition, thanks to other improvements we made to our detection technology, we doubled the amount of drug content we removed in Q4 2019, removing 8.8 million pieces of content.

“On Instagram, we made improvements to our text and image matching technology to help us find more suicide and self-injury content. As a result, we increased the amount of content we took action on by 40% and increased our proactive detection rate by more than 12 points since the last report.

“We also made progress in our work combating online bullying by introducing several new features to help people manage their experience and limit unwanted interactions, and we announced new Instagram controls today. We are sharing enforcement data for bullying on Instagram for the first time in this report, including taking action on 1.5 million pieces of content in both Q4 2019 and Q1 2020.”

Lastly, improvements to Facebook’s technology for finding and removing content similar to existing violations in our databases helped the company take down more child nudity and sexual exploitative content on Facebook and Instagram, Rosen disclosed.

Over the last six months, he said, Facebook has started to use technology more to prioritize content for its teams to review based on factors like virality and severity among others.

Going forward, it plans to leverage technology to also take action on content, including removing more posts automatically. This will enable our content reviewers to focus their time on other types of content where more nuance and context are needed to make a decision.

The Community Standards Enforcement Report is published in conjunction with Facebook’s bi-annual Transparency Report that shares numbers on government requests for user data, content restrictions based on local law, intellectual property take-downs and internet disruptions.

“In the future we’ll share Community Standards Enforcement Reports quarterly, so our next report will be released in August,” he said.


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E-Business

Amazon CEO Says AI will Reduce Number of Workers Needed

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Amazon’s management on Wednesday said that it expects that artificial intelligence software will reduce the number of office workers at the world’s largest online retailer.

Amazon CEO Says AI will Reduce Number of Workers Needed

Andy Jassy, chief executive, Amazon

“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today and more people doing other types of jobs,” Andy Jassy, chief executive, Amazon  wrote in an email to employees.

He said it was difficult to predict how the overall workforce will evolve, but in the next few years, it is expected that AI efficiency gains will lead to a reduction in the number of office workers.

According to earlier reports, Amazon employed around 1.5 million people worldwide, with approximately 350,000 office employees in various roles.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the company does not anticipate further large-scale layoffs, as seen in 2022 and 2023, in the near future.

Instead, it expects that vacant positions will not be refilled.

However, layoffs are not ruled out, according to sources familiar with the matter.

“Amazon is focusing on so-called AI agents, software capable of independently performing tasks. These agents could, for example, summarise information from the web and data sources, write software, translate languages and automate many time-consuming tasks,” Mr Jassy explained.

“Agents will be teammates that we can call on at various stages of our work,” he added, urging employees to experiment with AI whenever possible.

The impact of AI on the job market has been a concern for many years.

Recently, Spotify, the leader in music streaming, announced that teams requesting additional staff would first need to prove that AI could not perform the tasks.

The creators of the language-learning app Duolingo plan to gradually replace external workers with AI.

 

 

 

 


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E-Business

BPP Partners NDPC to Strengthen Data Protection

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Dr Adebowale Adedokun, director-general, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), has reaffirmed the bureau’s commitment to data protection in Nigeria.

BPP Partners NDPC to Strengthen Data Protection

He disclosed this in a statement at the weekend by Zira Nagga, head of Public Relations, BPP, following a courtesy visit by a delegation from the National Data Protection Commission (NDPC).

Adedokun stressed that data protection is vital to Nigeria’s economy and development, particularly in areas such as demography, health, education, and other key sectors.

He emphasised that no country should leave its data unprotected, as it plays a crucial role in future planning and national development.

“Data governs the world. It is essential to technological progress and must be protected for a country or business to be taken seriously,” he said.

Adedokun described the visit, aimed at fostering partnership on data policy implementation and protection, as timely and aligned with national goals.

He said the BPP would collaborate closely with the NDPC to boost data development, capacity building, and enhance the procurement system.

“The BPP will support compliance as part of the ‘Nigeria First’ Policy, although it is not a core procurement eligibility requirement,” he explained.

He suggested a hybrid training model to help build strong capacity in data protection, privacy awareness, and policy understanding.

According to him, a dynamic training approach will reduce logistics costs and improve public confidence in data safety and privacy.

Dr Vincent Olatunji, CEO, and national commissioner, NDPC, praised Adedokun and the BPP for supporting data protection initiatives.

He said the partnership supports President Bola Tinubu’s vision and will strengthen data privacy across Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).

“The collaboration will create awareness and train BPP staff to ensure a firm grasp of data protection principles and policies,” he stated.

Olatunji said the NDPC would establish a working group to finalise a Memorandum of Understanding beneficial to both institutions.

He added that President Tinubu signed the NDPC into law on 12 June 2023 to uphold citizens’ rights and protect national and business data.

Olatunji also noted that strict legal measures were in place to enforce data protection and ensure full compliance nationwide.

Both agencies agreed to form a team to sign the MoU and focus on capacity building and data management in procurement and beyond.

 

 


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FG Mulls Fibre Optic Layout to Bridge Internet Gaps

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President Bola Tinubu said that his administration has initiated a project to install fibre optic cables across the country, aimed at enhancing the socio-economic development of Nigeria.

FG Mulls Fibre Optic Layout to Bridge Internet Gaps

His plans were contained in a speech he delivered at a joint session of the National Assembly in commemoration of Democracy Day on Thursday, June 12.

He said the fibre optic layout is part of other projects being embarked on.

“In addition, we have embarked on an ambitious project to lay fibre optic cables across the nation, a transformative step toward bridging the digital divide and fostering greater connectivity.

“This initiative promises not only to enhance the speed and reliability of internet access but also to revolutionise how businesses operate, how students learn, and how communities stay connected,” Tinubu stated.

He maintained that by extending this critical infrastructure, his government is empowering entrepreneurs, enabling digital education, and providing the tools for our youth to compete in a globalised world.

In a most recent report on Internet connectivity, The ICIR pointed out how Nigeria has faced setbacks in its deployment of fibre optic cables and needs a transformation.

The challenges revolve around vandalism, inadequate coordination between road construction and telecom infrastructure, and varying right-of-way (RoW) charges across states.

Among industry experts, these issues impact network outages, increase repair costs, and hinder broadband expansion efforts.

It has also further threatened the digital economy, leading to slower Internet speeds, dropped calls, and unreliable connectivity among others.


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