Facebook says it removed a flood of hate speech, terrorist propaganda and fake accounts from its site

Facebook said it had removed more than a billion fake accounts and taken action against millions of posts, photos and other forms of content that violated its prohibition against hate speech, terrorist propaganda and child exploitation, the latest sign that the social-networking giant faces an onslaught of online abuse as it builds tools to spot it. In the new report reflecting the company’s activities between April and Sept, Facebook said it had found and removed roughly 1.5 billion fake accounts, while targeting 12.4 million pieces of terrorist propaganda, 2.2 billion pieces of spam and 66 million pieces of content that ran afoul of rules barring adult nudity and sexual activity. The company said that it catches more than 95 percent of nudity, fake accounts and graphic violence before users report it to Facebook. But for hate speech and a related category, bullying, the company catches 51.6 percent and 14.9 percent of incidents before they are flagged by Facebook users.