WhatsApp has outlined how it is tackling abuse and spread of fake news on the messaging platform. The company said that they have built a machine learning system to detect users with abusive behavior and those sending bulk messages and creating multiple accounts with the sole purpose of spreading false and abusive content. WhatsApp also assured that such accounts are barred from the platform at various stages; at the time of registration while messaging, and when they are reported by others, the company’s executives said. The company bans a total of around two million accounts on its platform each month. The machine learning system used by WhatsApp leverages on the past learnings with such accounts and specific scenarios that engineers followed to eventually take down some accounts. That machine learning system has reached a level of sophistication and it is able to ban 20% of accounts at the time of registration itself. The company looks at various factors including the IP address of a user, and the country of origination for phone numbers they use to sign up for the service, how old is the account, whether that account started to send a lot of texts as soon as it was created. WhatsApp said that ...
Wednesday, 6 February 2019
WhatsApp uses machine learning to detect bulk messaging and automated behaviour
WhatsApp has outlined how it is tackling abuse and spread of fake news on the messaging platform. The company said that they have built a machine learning system to detect users with abusive behavior and those sending bulk messages and creating multiple accounts with the sole purpose of spreading false and abusive content. WhatsApp also assured that such accounts are barred from the platform at various stages; at the time of registration while messaging, and when they are reported by others, the company’s executives said. The company bans a total of around two million accounts on its platform each month. The machine learning system used by WhatsApp leverages on the past learnings with such accounts and specific scenarios that engineers followed to eventually take down some accounts. That machine learning system has reached a level of sophistication and it is able to ban 20% of accounts at the time of registration itself. The company looks at various factors including the IP address of a user, and the country of origination for phone numbers they use to sign up for the service, how old is the account, whether that account started to send a lot of texts as soon as it was created. WhatsApp said that ...
