FACEBOOK CURBS : GROUPS SPREADING HATERED

SAN FRANCISCO : Facebook on Thursday said it is cracking down on private groups where hate or misinformation is shared among members.

The move comes amid a wider crack down on malicious and false content at the social networking giant which has led people to turn to private groups of like-minded members who can share content that is not available to the wider Facebook community.

''People turn to facebook Groups to connect with others who share their interests, but if they decide to make a group private, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else,'' Facebook vice president of engineering from Tom Allison said in a blog post.

Allison said Facebook's community standards ''apply to public and private groups, and our proactive detection tools work across both.''

Facebook uses artificial intelligence to automatically scanning posts, even in private groups, taking down pages that repeatedly break its rules or that are set up in violation of the social network's standards. [AFP]