Apologies And Technology

Google is apologizing to advertisers for placing ads next to hate speech and other offensive material on the web.  It is important for the company to get ad placement right because most of its income and earnings comes from advertising.  Saying I’m sorry will not be enough, however.  Google has to police the web and to remove the material to protect advertisers.  This will take people and technology.  However, there is no way Google can watch every web site all of the time using humans.  It will require artificial intelligence to scan myriads of web sites where Google places advertising and a computer-based ability to recognize offensive speech.  This will be a test of the company’s technical capabilities and of its PR.  Apologies in the future will not be enough.  It has to fix the problem.