How the FT is using AI for its comments section

Marcela Kunova of Journalism.co.uk writes about how the Financial Times is using artificial intelligence to review comments on its articles.

Kunova writes, “After starting to use the tool, rather than accepting every decision the machine has made, the human moderators checked each decision manually. It took a couple of months to get the moderating decisions right: the machine now catches most sexist and racist comments, despite the sophisticated language the FT readers use to get around it.

“‘It is not perfect and it is still learning,’ Warwick-Ching says after six months.

“However, its impact has been significant. Previously, moderators spent a large portion of their time filtering out negativity. Now, AI takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting, freeing them up to focus on community-building. Readers often share valuable insights, personal stories, and even story leads within the comments. Moderators can now dedicate their time to finding these gems and bringing them to the attention of journalists, enriching FT‘s content.

“The benefits are not just about efficiency. Moderating online comments takes an emotional toll. AI now absorbs most of that negativity, protecting humans from the worst abuse.”

Read more here.