Facebook says it has removed over 30 million posts for 'hate speech' this year so far

Facebook announced this week that over the first half of the year it has removed over 30 million posts for violating the company's "hate speech" guidelines, claiming improvements to its internal detection system led to a major uptick in removals. 

The company said on Tuesday that it had deleted 22.5 million offensive posts in the second quarter of the year, a huge jump from the 9.6 million it had removed in the first quarter. 

Facebook has faced sustained criticism in recent months over its alleged shortcomings in handling hateful material on its servers. 

In July, numerous major international corporations led a monthlong advertising boycott of the website in an attempt to force Facebook to crack down more heavily on offensive content. 

Late last month that consortium, known as Stop Hate for Profit, claimed that the campaign had been a "success," stating that the boycott had "forced Facebook to make a series of concessions to long-standing demands of civil rights organizations," including establishing "a dedicated team to study algorithmic racial bias."

The movement said it has "explicit commitments from many advertisers to participate in future pauses and new actions if Facebook continues to ignore their demands for change."