Google Maps blocked more than 95 million reviews that violated its policies using artificial intelligence

Google Maps blocked or removed more than 95 million reviews that violated its policies and terms of use, as well as more than seven million fake business profiles, using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system.

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In a post on his BlogGoogle Product Manager, Pavithra Kanakarajan, has reported on the way in which it has maintained the security of the data belonging to the accounts present in Google Maps, as well as the comments of the users of this application server.

Thanks to a combination of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and human personnel, Google has reduced the amount of fraudulent or abusive content, which, according to the company, is less than one of the total seen on Maps.

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“Every day we get about 20 million contributions from people who use Maps. Those contributions include everything from up-to-date business hours and phone numbers to photos and reviews.”Kanakarajan commented.

These contributions have helped them improve the service and user experience in times of pandemic, since Covid-19 has in many cases fostered misinformation regarding the health and safety protocols of establishments and services recognized on Maps.

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In this way, the contributions of both users and business owners throughout 2021 have helped them keep Google Maps updated for 30% more establishments than in 2020.

Despite the fact that, thanks to these contributions, Google was able to offer more detailed information about its services, the company has assured that it blocked more than 100 million of these editions through machine learning, capable of detecting the activity of the ‘bots’ and discovering suspicious activity patterns.

With this technology, Google has also been able to identify and eliminate more than seven million false commercial profiles, of which it received direct notification from users for more than 630,000.

It also stopped more than 12 million attempts to create fake business profiles and nearly 8 million attempts from people claiming other business accounts that didn’t belong to them.

Thanks to the implemented improvements, it disabled more than 1 million user accounts because they had violated its usage policies and committed online fraud or vandalism.

Google Maps blocked or removed more than 95 million reviews that violated the policies and terms of use of its service using an artificial intelligence system. (Photo: Search Engine Journal)

COVID-19 AND FALSE INFORMATION

Google has determined that, as the health situation evolved, it improved and reopened a large part of the establishments, many users relied on Google Maps to know their status.

Thanks to this service, potential clients of establishments such as bars or restaurants could obtain information about the places before visiting them, as well as the security protocols that were applied in them.

Due to this reopening, some users took advantage of the situation to harm local businesses and spread false information about them.

In this way, they blocked and removed more than 95 million reviews that violated their policies, of which more than 60,000 were removed for reasons related to Covid-19.

Specifically, they deleted more than 1 million reviews that were directly reported by users. Additionally, they closed and removed more than 190 million photos and 5 million videos that were blurry, low-quality, or violated their content policies.

Through a combination of AI, machine learning, and human personnel, Google has reduced the amount of fraudulent or abusive content on Maps. (Photo: Henry Perks/Unsplash)

Source: Elcomercio