"We're at a point now where we've built AI tools to detect when terrorists are trying to spread content, and 99 percent of the terrorist content that we take down, our systems flag before any human sees them or flags them for us"
About this Quote
The intent is less about terrorists than about legitimacy. After years of public backlash over extremism, election misinformation, and the accusation that Facebook optimizes for reach over responsibility, he’s reframing the platform as a security apparatus: watchful, proactive, technically sophisticated. “Before any human sees them” also carries an implicit moral absolution. If no one sees it, the company hasn’t “hosted” it in the way critics mean; harm becomes a transient blip caught at the perimeter.
The subtext, though, is that content moderation is being repositioned as an engineering problem with an engineering fix. That’s comforting to regulators and advertisers because it suggests scale is no longer a liability. It also quietly dodges the harder questions: What gets misclassified? Who defines “terrorist content” across languages and conflicts? What happens in the remaining 1 percent, where virality can do damage in minutes?
Context matters: “terrorist content” is the cleanest, least controversial category to cite. Few audiences will argue for its protection, so it’s an ideal showcase for AI moderation - and a strategic stand-in for far messier speech problems Meta would rather discuss in percentages than in politics.
Quote Details
| Topic | Artificial Intelligence |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Zuckerberg, Mark. (2026, January 15). We're at a point now where we've built AI tools to detect when terrorists are trying to spread content, and 99 percent of the terrorist content that we take down, our systems flag before any human sees them or flags them for us. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-at-a-point-now-where-weve-built-ai-tools-to-172678/
Chicago Style
Zuckerberg, Mark. "We're at a point now where we've built AI tools to detect when terrorists are trying to spread content, and 99 percent of the terrorist content that we take down, our systems flag before any human sees them or flags them for us." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-at-a-point-now-where-weve-built-ai-tools-to-172678/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We're at a point now where we've built AI tools to detect when terrorists are trying to spread content, and 99 percent of the terrorist content that we take down, our systems flag before any human sees them or flags them for us." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/were-at-a-point-now-where-weve-built-ai-tools-to-172678/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
