Thuringian State Media Authority uses AI to detect online hate

In the fight against criminal content on the Internet, the Thuringian state media authority sometimes successfully relies on artificial intelligence (AI). According to the media authority, an AI tool called “Kiwi” has been facilitating cooperation with partner institutions in other federal states since May last year and simplifying the exchange with federal and state criminal police offices.

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An employee of the state media authority summarized, “Kiwi supports us in such a way that we no longer have to constantly research the Internet ourselves. Our goal is to remove criminal content from the Internet as quickly as possible.”

Over 230 problematic ingredients

The result: Last year, the state media authority received 235 requests to remove hate comments, banned Nazi slogans, incitement to hatred and other criminal content whose authors were attributed to Thuringia. Most of them referred to Facebook. Around 90 percent of these cases were removed from the platform after the state media authority reported the content there and recommended its removal. In addition, the state criminal police office can also be involved via Kiwi to prosecute the content.

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However, according to a state media authority expert, not every platform responds to deletion notices. On the Russian network VK or the messenger Telegram, no reported post will be effectively removed.

“Fighting Windmills”

Despite automated support through AI tools, monitoring content on the internet remains a challenge for the state media authority, the employee said. “Given the flood of content, sometimes it feels like fighting against windmills.” But stopping is not an option.

According to the information, the AI ​​tool can currently check more than 10,000 pages per day for problematic content. Apart from Facebook, X, TikTok and classic websites have also been taken into consideration.

The state media authority in North Rhine-Westphalia started the initiative for the Kiwi tool and introduced it in 2021, and other state media authorities followed suit. Accordingly, with Kiwi the community of state media authorities was able to investigate, confirm and report more than 11,600 violations of legal regulations to the BKA in the period from March 2021 to February 2024.

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