China begins testing voice recognition to identify pornographic content

AI system recognizes porn through voice recognition – Xinhua

What happened: An artificial intelligence platform that detects pornographic content through voice recognition began testing on Sunday (August 19). The Alibaba-developed system is scheduled to be put into operation in September, although where it will be used has not been specified. It is able to identify content in multiple languages including English, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian, as well as a number of local dialects online and offline.

Why it’s important: The Chinese government has escalated the intensity of an online crackdown this year, banning content it believes to be “vulgar” or “inappropriate.” Short video platforms have been some of the hardest hit, with numerous companies being forced to intensify their monitoring efforts, which now often require teams of thousands of individuals. AI has seen increased usage in automating these processes and systems like Alibaba’s porn detecting platform will result in more of these sorts of content being identified, flagged, and removed.