How AI can play a major role in monitoring content shared on social media platform

Authored by Kuldeep Chaudhary, Chief Executive Officer, ADOHM.

A lot of controversy and discussion have been trailing around some social media apps such as TikTok and WhatsApp. TikTok has experienced a serious controversy which has also lead to a major discussion regarding the further existence of the app. The reason for this controversy is due the abuse or misuse of the app to distribute child pornography and illegal content.  

TikTok is the third most downloaded app in the world, which 88.6 million downloads come from India, and it has 188 million downloads globally. Hence this will be a huge loss for an amazing app to be banned due to the recklessness of a few.

TikTok isn’t the only accomplice in this controversy; WhatsApp has also been experiencing its own setback. Due to the way fake news and fake stories are being circulated through this platform, Governments such as the Indian government have instructed WhatsApp to create a technology that can trace the source of a message, but WhatsApp believes this will be breaking their end to end encryption policy that safe guard’s data privacy.

So with all these controversies, should these amazing apps shut down their operation and go into extinction because of some reckless users? Surely, shutting down these apps will not be the solution, as it has also been used to build relationships, improve businesses, and also people’s social lives.

The best steps these companies can take is to create AI tools that will help in monitoring and analyzing customers contents and behavior on social media.

Artificial intelligence is the ability of a computer system to understand problems and make a decision. It performs task usually done by humans but this time with little effort and fast conversion. An example of AI application is in WhatsApp, which doesn’t allow an Indian user to forward more than 5 chats to friends. Forwarded messages are regarded as spam. AI can interpret and analyze contents broadcasted by users.

Why AI Can Help To Regulate Illicit Content

AI’s ability to interpret and analyze contents with so much speed holds a potential future in regulated contents posted by individuals. It doesn’t just analyze written contents such as fake news and stories that contain no  legitimate source, it also analyzes images and videos that contain illicit contents and it makes its decision based on the instruction given to it, either to delete such content and flag such account, or to ban the user permanently from such platforms,

Below are some features of AI that shows it can be used to curb illegal content shared on platforms.

Intentionality:

The AI algorithm is created to make instant decisions, acting on real-time data. AI uses sensors to analyze content. It judges based on the insights retrieve from the content, the content may be allowed to be broadcast, or it unapproved if the AI senses any form of contraband in the post.

Intelligence:

AI is a mix of machine learning and data analytics. Machine learning extracts data and looks for an underlying trend, and if it finds a practical problem, maybe users are beginning to promote Ponzi schemes or fake reviews through the platform, the software engineers are notified, and they then take the knowledge, sit on it, and whatsoever decision reached by the platform, it becomes the decision of the AI. Hence if the platform says, delete any account that promotes Ponzi schemes, the AI with its machine learning ability can discover such trends ad accounts and take the necessary actions.

Adaptability:

AI has the ability to learn and adapt and also make a crucial decision. In transportation, AI can detect events such as potholes, congestion, or highway construction. This same technology can be used in social media. When content has the potential to go viral, an AI can easily detect such content and immediately analyzes the content to know if it breaches any of its set terms and condition.

Making use of images:

AI with the help of Computer vision, NLU (Natural Language Understanding) & NLP (Natural Language Processing) has the intelligence to understand between the content that has been uploaded, so that it is not misused. AI is the best solution to efficient social media monitoring. Through AI whosoever is using a brand identity to impersonate and create fake news or stories, such an account can be easily identified, and the necessary actions will be taken on such an account.

It is important to know that these features don’t break the end to end encryption policy that safe guard’s data privacy. It only works on contents intended to be broadcasted. Such post should pass through rigorous check before reaching other users. Although some platforms are beginning to use this technology, more work needs to be done. 

About the Author

Kuldeep Chaudhary is currently Chief Executive Officer of ADOHM Adtech Pvt Ltd, a new age marketing platform powered by Artificial Intelligence. A B.E. in Electronics and Communications, Kuldeep co-founded ADOHM in the year 2017 along with his brothers Nishant and Sandeep (both engineers).