This follows the suspected suicide this year of cyberbullying victim Hana Kimura, a reality show actor.

Yahoo Japan will use AI to detect and delete hate messages and defamatory remarks from its online posting sites. The action follows the tragic and suspected suicide due to cyberbullying of reality television show star Hana Kimura. (The Japan Times)

The artificial intelligence algorithm will automatically remove posts that match a list of malicious expressions to be released by Yahoo Japan. Anybody whose posts have been removed is entitled to enquire or complain about it to Yahoo Japan.

Regularly the company will also release status reports that will cover its internal systems and procedures for removal of obnoxious posts as well as give statistics about the number of posts that have been deleted.

Kimura’s death

Hana Kimura, a 22-year professional wrestler, died in May and presumably took her own life. According to the police, she was a victim of about 300 hateful messages from around 200 accounts. Police suspect that the messages caused her to commit suicide.

Police are investigating a 20-year-old man from the Osaka Prefecture for posting malicious messages on social media against Kimura. For example, “Hey, when are you going to die?” and other such comments.

Panel recommendations

Yahoo Japan (TYO: 4689) appointed a panel of experts to advise strategies to tackle cyberbullying and defamatory online posts.

These steps are a result of the recommendations from that panel.

“We will make all-out efforts to deter and curb harmful posts,” said Kentaro Kawabe, president of Z Holdings Corp., the parent company of Yahoo Japan.

In June, Yahoo Japan said that users posted approximately 290,000 comments on its web properties every day. Of these, on average, artificial intelligence deleted 20,000 abusive posts.

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