Facebook has acquired a London-based artificial intelligence company which could help it fight the rise of fake news.
TechCrunch reports that the social media giant will pay between $23 million and $30m for Bloomsbury AI.
Facebook said that the firm’s expertise “will strengthen Facebook’s efforts in natural language processing research, and help us further understand natural language and its applications”.
Bloomsbury AI’s mission statement is to help people gain “direct access to the knowledge they need”.
The firm’s co-founder and head of research Sebastian Riedel also co-founded Factmata, which claims to have developed tools to help brands combat fake news.
Investors in Bloomsbury AI, which came through the Entrepreneur First programme, include Fly.VC, Seedcamp, IQ Capital, UCL Technology Fund and the London Co-investment Fund.