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Google audits every review before they’re published to Maps, looking for signs of fake or misleading content.
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It employs teams of trained operators and analysts who audit reviews, photos, business profiles, and other types of content.”
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In 2019 alone it removed more than 75 million policy-violating reviews and 4 million fake business profiles.
Google has revealed in a blog post that, it uses , including machine learning models, to scan millions of contributions to detect and remove policy-violating content.
Google Maps is a rapidly growing platform with hundreds of millions of people contributing over 20 million reviews, ratings, and other pieces of content to Google Maps' existing 200 million points of interest daily. Ultimately, this helps people everywhere make better decisions about where to eat and shop, or things to do and see. Thus, it is ensuring they don't reach over 1 billion users who regularly use Google Maps by detecting malicious contributions at submission time using AI and Machine Learning.
In the case of reviews, its systems audit every review before they’re published to Maps, looking for signs of fake or misleading content. And its machine learning models watch for specific words and phrases and examine patterns in the types of content an account has contributed in the past while taking into account suspicious review patterns.
As AI isn't perfect, employs teams of trained operators and analysts who audit reviews, photos, business profiles, and other types of content, both individually and in bulk.
With the help of machine learning systems, Google improved its ability to block policy-violating content and detect anomalies for manual review, human moderators removed, and in 2019 alone it removed more than 75 million policy-violating reviews and 4 million fake business profiles. They also took down more than 580,000 reviews and 258,000 business profiles that were reported directly to Google, and they reviewed and removed more than 10 million photos and 3 million videos that violated Maps’ policies and disabled more than 475,000 user accounts.
“The vast majority of contributions made to Maps are authentic, with policy-violating content seen less than one percent of the time. And we’ll continue to develop new tools and techniques to fight against bad actors. Contributed content is an indispensable part of how we’re making Maps richer and more helpful for everyone.”
- Kevin Reece, Director of Product Management at Google
A Wall Street Journal report concluded that there are millions of fake listings on Maps. The latest metrics come after Google took steps to remove those listings. In response to this and other controversies relating to user-submitted content, including an incident involving a drawing of an Android logo urinating on an Apple logo, Google has at various points shuttered public map editing tools and introduced new Maps moderation features.
"Like any platform that welcomes user-generated content, we have to remain vigilant against inappropriate content—the vast majority of which is removed before anyone actually sees it. And as more people contribute to Google Maps, we continue to crack down on the bad actors who violate our policies, using a combination of people and technology to tackle unwelcome content."
- Google
Google is not the only tech giant known to be employing AI and machine learning techniques to spot content that violets its policies. In October, Pinterest reported that AI helped reduce self-harm content on its platform by 88%. The same month, Twitter said that 50% of all abusive tweets are flagged by its automated tools even before users report them.
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Facebook too, proactively identifies over 96.8% of prohibited content using AI, including bullying and harassment, child nudity, global terrorist propaganda, violence and graphic content, and others.
The Google Maps now cover places across 220 countries and the Local Guides, a community of Maps users has more than 120 million members contributing to reviews and more. Maps provide accessibility info like wheelchair-friendly entrances and restrooms for more than 50 million places around the world. More than 5 million websites and apps are using Google Maps Platform every week, a set of APIs and SDK that let developers integrate Maps with existing apps.
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