AI Used to Enhance User Safety and Combat Misinformation: Meta India Head

According to Sandhya Devanathan, the head of Meta in India, the parent company of well-known apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp, places great emphasis on user safety and is extensively utilizing artificial intelligence to tackle the issue of misinformation.

Meta will continue its efforts towards electoral integrity as India heads into next year’s Lok Sabha elections, he told PTI.

Devanathan, who is Meta’s head of India, said user security is an area where the company has invested “a lot”.

Outlining the strategy Meta has adopted to combat misinformation and hate speech on its platform, Devanathan said one way is through the use of technology.

“So Artificial Intelligence has been a big tool that has been our friend in combating a lot of misinformation and preventing harm on our platforms. Artificial intelligence removes almost 85 percent of content classified as harmful before it even hits the target. Humans are moderate,” he said, adding, that this means making good use of technology.

He added: “We have 3.88 billion monthly activities. So AI has been a huge tool here”.

Specifically in India, Metal has content moderators in over 20 languages who are actively looking at what they can do to ensure that harmful content does not remain on its platforms.

“We have partnerships with 11 fact-checkers in multiple languages. It’s the biggest partnership we have with Meta globally, where we have third-party fact-checkers, fact-checking on the platform,” he said.

Meta has also emphasized training and user awareness.

“… informing people about their choices, the privacy settings that they can keep… but also how to detect incorrect information on our site… So, this is an area where we will continue to invest,” Devanathan said. .

India is one of Meta’s largest user bases globally – there were 400 million Facebook users here at last count, and the numbers have grown since then.

Regarding Meta’s election integrity efforts, he said, “We have seen about 200 elections so far where we have ensured that the elections were conducted smoothly on our platform.”

Meta’s efforts will certainly continue in the Indian elections as well, he assured.

“But I go back to the work we’re doing in fact-checking, the work we’re doing in education and helping people spot misinformation. So in addition to the election, I think this should be something circular and ongoing,” he said.

In this context, it is pertinent to mention that India is one of the biggest markets for social media companies like Metal, Google and X (formerly Twitter) due to the growing sales of smartphones and the growth of dirt cheap data on digital platforms.

However, in recent years, social media companies have come under fire globally and in India for harming users and spreading misinformation, hate speech and fake news on their platforms.

Dissatisfaction is also growing among users who claim that digital platforms have committed arbitrary acts in removing content or have not responded quickly enough to complaints even when reported by users.

India has tightened rules on social media companies, making them more accountable to users.

In fact, the government has time and again emphasized that security and trust are public policy goals and tasks, and it is doing everything it can to ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place for digital citizens moving online and in the social media space.