With the continued development and improvement of powerful AI support systems, platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter and Instagram now have a truly viable option to provide targeted support to its users at scale – addressing issues such as cyberbullying, harassment and abuse in their communities.
Providing effective support relative to where people are has always been a problem for companies due to the complexity of delivering effective solutions to communities in multiple countries. With more than 2 billion users on Facebook, 1 billion on Instagram and 330 million on Twitter, social media platforms have to contend with a large, global community made up of more than 100 countries. This creates a complex situation in terms of adapting resources specifically for people in different parts of the world.
Now with the birth of AI support technology, it is possible to start addressing these problems of scale. One specific example of how AI is being used to help support people around the world is a tool developed by anti-cyberbullying nonprofit The Cybersmile Foundation which provides support to users affected by issues such as cyberbullying, reputation attacks, anxiety and depression. Their innovative AI product named ‘Cybersmile Assistant’ is the first in the nonprofit sector to deliver a scaled support solution where people in different countries receive a specific set of resources adapted to their query. For example, the nonprofit’s AI delivers different advice and resources for users in the U.S. compared with Canada or Australia – all with a customized set of information and expert hotlines based on the user’s location. This is just one example of how AI, delivered through a chat-bot style interface, can allow people to get immediate, specifically targeted help depending on their problem and where they are in the world.
Social media platforms have so far struggled to build adaptable support resources for large numbers of users. It was recently reported that Facebook moderators were suffering from depression and other ailments due to the number of manual content reviews they had to do daily.
With problems such as cyberbullying and mental health problems being so widespread on social media, it is not realistic for platforms which cater for billions of users to begin to deal with these issues using traditional support models. However, recent developments in AI such as Cybersmile Assistant pave the way for a much more realistic approach where people can access reporting tools, support and information at scale. This is not to say that traditional support is not valid. As of course, there is a requirement for people to have that important one-to-one support for specific cases, but for providing more general help based resources, AI can be an effective solution in dealing with these important global issues.
