31 Jan 2025

As social media moderation declines, Kiwi toxicity tool help?

From Nine To Noon, 9:20 am on 31 January 2025
Word hate written with keyboard buttons

Photo: 123RF

Earlier this year Meta announced some big changes to how its platforms like Facebook and Instagram would operate - among them, flicking the fact-checkers. The company's CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the third-party moderators were "too politically biased" and it was "time to get back to our roots around free expression".

But could that end in a free-for-all, with more hate speech being bandied about? A team of researchers at the University of Auckland have developed a tool called 'Serenity' to help combat toxic online messages. It's aimed at the ones that get around automated moderation filters - with a gentle "nudge" back to the sender to consider and change their wording.

Joining Kathryn to explain more is lead researcher Johnny Chan from the University's Business School.