WASHINGTON: Facebook said Wednesday it was making steady progress in curbing hate speech and violent content on the massive social network as it released its quarterly update on enforcing its standards.

The leading social media firm said refinements in artificial intelligence have helped it filter out more hateful and violent content along with bullying, inappropriate sexual material and fake accounts, among other things.

Facebook said the "prevalence" of hate speech in the first quarter of 2021 was between 0.05 and 0.06 percent, a drop of nearly half from mid-2020.

Facebook's vice president for integrity Guy Rosen told reporters using this metric of prevalence was appropriate because "it captures not what we took down but what we missed... hate speech prevalence on Facebook continues to decrease."

The update comes with Facebook under pressure from governments and activist groups to crack down on hateful and abusive content, along with misinformation and incitements to violence.