Facebook is strengthening its efforts to fight fake news by buying the startup Bloomsbury AI.
According to a report from TechCrunch, Facebook is all set to expand its influence in the United Kingdom by buying the AI startup Bloomsbury AI. This time, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is reportedly eyeing to strengthen its efforts against fake news through the startup.
Bloomsbury AI is a U.K.-based startup whose primary focus is to develop machine learning technologies and Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods. The company has reportedly built an NLP technology which allows machines to use information gleaned from documents to answer user queries.
TechCrunch’s sources said that Facebook would be using the startup’s research team to solve content issues and the ever-growing problem it faces about fake news. Furthermore, sources familiar to the matter said that Facebook would be paying between $23 million and $30 million USD to acquire the AI startup.
The payment will be in the form of both cash and stocks, with the startup’s investors receiving $5.5 million and Bloomsbury’s founding team the remaining $17.5 million in Facebook restricted stock.
Despite the millions involved in the supposed transaction, it is still a far cry from Deepmind’s $500 million USD asking price when it was acquired by Google. However, the acquisition is considered good news in UK’s booming AI sector. Today, the United Kingdom is being branded as one of the AI superpowers of the world.
Bloomsbury’s current product is the API they called Cape which enables developers to create websites with a question and answer functionality. While both companies have not confirmed the acquisition, TechCrunch’s sources said that aside from combating fake news and solving Facebook’s content moderation problems, Cape could also be used to enhance the company’s workplace tool and search and knowledge-base functionality.
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