Decisions made in recent months that have attracted controversy across the social media platforms are new changes in the comment moderation policies of the three main services including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The new measures for increased safety have generated some controversy from the ML users, advocacy groups and other industry experts.

According to the revised measures, machine learning-based tools will contribute a significantly greater part to identify such potentially damaging comments for moderation and deletion before others users comes across the same. The platforms state that this approach will make a discussion online more safer and positive. However, the opponents opine that the usage of the technology may lead to strict censorship as well as infringement of the right to freedom of speech.

Facebook’s head of content policy, Sarah Chen, defended the changes in a statement released yesterday: “We would like to ensure our users can engage in sincere discussions without getting harassed or attacked,” said Chen, adding that human reviewers will continue to monitor the flagged content to consider accuracy and context,”.

Most discussion has arisen from the feature that Twitter introduced recently whereby they implemented a policy that hides all the tweets that contain words that a user may deem as negative or provocative. These comments are not displayed on the feed until the users click on it; though some people claim that this contributes to an echo chamber because people only see what they like.

According to civil liberties organizations these policies may be abused or misused hence raising a lot of concern. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) released a statement cautioning against overzealous moderation: “It isn’t that we need online harassment cease; nevertheless, it is crucial we remember that in attempting to mitigate this problem we do not inadvertently begin to stifle the voices of minorities or suppress true dissent. ”

The effect of these change has been early felt in various online community. There have been several high profile instances already such as eradicating negative comments about a particular large company’s environmental policy on Facebook, which Facebook acknowledged as having been done through the AI of the system mistakenly.

Still, many users have expressed their opinion about the decrease of abusive comments and more enjoyable time in using the sites. Sarah Thompson, a lifestyle blogger with a significant Instagram following, shared her thoughts: “There is a significantly lower volume of negative comments coming on my posts now. ” It is a good change to be commenting and interacting with the audience without having to moderate most of the negative feedback all the time.

While the argument goes on, people using technology products and services and independent authorities requests technology firms come up with formidable regulations that can allow people to freely express themselves without harming others. The European Union has also stated that it plans to reassess the new policies in order to address any violations of digital rights laws and the U. S. lawmakers want to have hearings to debate on the effects of artificial intelligence enabled content moderation.

Such change, experts believe, holds potential for the transformation of the ways in which people communicate with one another through the Internet and the modulation of public opinion. So long as changes in the dynamics of social media and the management of their content continue to be an ongoing issue – the topicality of issues pertaining to the protection of digital rights, freedom of speech, and safety in the online environment will likely remain relevant for the coming years.