Facebook announced Wednesday it has removed millions of posts that violated its hate speech and child exploitation guidelines, marking an increase in posts removed as the company faces scrutiny for what content it allows.
In a transparency report for both its site and Instagram, Facebook said — between July and September — it removed 11.6 million posts depicting child sexual exploitation, 7 million for hate speech violations, 5.2 for depicting terrorist propaganda and 3.2 million for violating their bullying and harassment policy.
In addition, Facebook said it removed more than 750,000 posts exploiting children on Instagram and over 130,000 posts showing terroristic content in the same time period. No numbers were shared on posts removed depicting hate speech or harassment.
Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg lauded the report, claiming other social media sites don’t release as detailed reports as his social network does.
“Some folks look at the numbers that we’re putting out … and come to the conclusion that because we’re reporting big numbers, that must mean so much more harmful content is happening on our services than others,” he said, according to The Hill. “I don’t think that’s what this says at all.”
He added that the high numbers show Facebook is “working harder” to address “some of the worst content that’s out there” being added to the site.
The transparency report also debuted its suicide or self-harm removal numbers, showing 2.5 million Facebook posts and 845,000 Instagram posts were removed.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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