New York Times Deploys Troll-Blocking AI Tech to Expand Reader Commenting
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The New York Times is using technology from an Alphabet Inc. unit to let online readers comment on more stories, betting that machine-learning software will make it easier to encourage civil debate while avoiding insults, abuse and trolling.
Starting Tuesday, the newspaper will open the comments section to about one-fourth of its stories, up from 10% before, and the goal is to reach 80% by year-end, according to Bassey Etim, the Times’ community editor. The New York Times is using software from Jigsaw, a technology incubator within Google owner Alphabet, to screen what readers write, helping human reviewers spend time on cases that require judgment calls. All top stories on the homepage during business hours will accept comments.
The media industry has struggled with how to take advantage of freewheeling online conversation without giving voice to hate speech or violent threats — problems that have also dogged Google’s YouTube and other tech companies including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. Jigsaw has worked with The Guardian newspaper, The Economist and Wikipedia to help develop its software. Called Perspective, it’s free for anyone to use and integrate into websites.
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