AI Tool Aims to Help Conserve Japan’s Cherry Trees 

Formula One F1 - Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan - April 4, 2025 Red Bull's Max Verstappen is seen through cherry blossoms during practice. (Reuters)
Formula One F1 - Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan - April 4, 2025 Red Bull's Max Verstappen is seen through cherry blossoms during practice. (Reuters)
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AI Tool Aims to Help Conserve Japan’s Cherry Trees 

Formula One F1 - Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan - April 4, 2025 Red Bull's Max Verstappen is seen through cherry blossoms during practice. (Reuters)
Formula One F1 - Japanese Grand Prix - Suzuka Circuit, Suzuka, Japan - April 4, 2025 Red Bull's Max Verstappen is seen through cherry blossoms during practice. (Reuters)

Japan's famed cherry trees are getting old, but a new AI tool that assesses photos of the delicate pink and white flowers could help preserve them for future generations.

The "sakura" season is feverishly anticipated by locals and visitors alike, with the profusion of the stunning blossoms marking the start of spring.

But many of the trees are reaching 70 to 80 years old, well beyond their prime blooming age.

This means increasing costs to tend to the trees and maintain popular flowering spots.

To help authorities identify ailing specimens, brewing giant Kirin developed a tool called Sakura AI Camera.

It tells users the condition and the age of the trees based on photos they take with their smartphones and upload them to a website.

A five-point scale -- only available in Japanese for now -- ranges from "very healthy" to "worrying".

A tree with healthy flowers blooming densely all the way to the tips of the branches gets top marks.

The artificial intelligence tool has been trained using 5,000 images of cherry trees with the help of experts.

The photos are then mapped on the Sakura AI Camera website with details such as tree condition and location.

"We heard that the preservation of sakura requires manpower and money and that it's difficult to gather information," Risa Shioda from Kirin told AFP.

"I think we can contribute by making it easier to plan for conservation," she said.

About 20,000 photos have been collected since the launch last month, with the data available online for free for local authorities.

- Worth a million -

According to Tokyo's Meguro Ward, famous for its riverbanks lined with cherry trees, replanting a new one costs around one million yen ($6,800).

Hiroyuki Wada of the Japan Tree Doctors Association, who inspects cherry trees in major spots in Tokyo, helped supervise the AI tool.

He said he hopes that it will help experts study the environmental reasons behind the degradation of some of the trees he sees.

In part, he blames climate change.

"I'm very worried. Changes in the environment are usually gradual, but now it's visible," he told AFP.

"There are impacts from the heat, and of course the lack of rainfall," he said.

"The age of the trees naturally makes the situation more serious," he added.

Japan's weather agency said in January that last year was the hottest since records began, like other nations.

Kirin began donating some of its profits for the preservation of cherry trees last year, as a way to "pay back" to the communities.

Cherry blossoms symbolize the fragility of life in Japanese culture as full blooms only last about a week before the petals start falling off trees.

The season is also considered one of change as it marks the start of the new business year, with many university graduates starting their first full-time jobs and older colleagues shifting to new positions.



Rise in 'Harmful Content' Since Meta Policy Rollbacks, Survey Shows

The logo of Meta is seen at the entrance of the company's temporary stand ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta is seen at the entrance of the company's temporary stand ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2025. (Reuters)
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Rise in 'Harmful Content' Since Meta Policy Rollbacks, Survey Shows

The logo of Meta is seen at the entrance of the company's temporary stand ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2025. (Reuters)
The logo of Meta is seen at the entrance of the company's temporary stand ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland January 18, 2025. (Reuters)

Harmful content including hate speech has surged across Meta's platforms since the company ended third-party fact-checking in the United States and eased moderation policies, a survey showed Monday.

The survey of around 7,000 active users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads comes after the Palo Alto company ditched US fact-checkers in January and turned over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as "Community Notes," popularized by X.

The decision was widely seen as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump's new administration, whose conservative support base has long complained that fact-checking on tech platforms was a way to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content.

Meta also rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity. The tech giant's updated community guidelines said its platforms would permit users to accuse people of "mental illness" or "abnormality" based on their gender or sexual orientation.

"These policy shifts signified a dramatic reversal of content moderation standards the company had built over nearly a decade," said the survey published by digital and human rights groups including UltraViolet, GLAAD, and All Out.

"Among our survey population of approximately 7,000 active users, we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased self-censorship".

One in six respondents in the survey reported being the victim of some form of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms, while 66 percent said they had witnessed harmful content such as hateful or violent material.

Ninety-two percent of surveyed users said they were concerned about increasing harmful content and felt "less protected from being exposed to or targeted by" such material on Meta's platforms.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents described feeling "less safe" expressing themselves freely.

The company declined to comment on the survey.

In its most recent quarterly report, published in May, Meta insisted that the changes in January had left a minimal impact.

"Following the changes announced in January we've cut enforcement mistakes in the US in half, while during that same time period the low prevalence of violating content on the platform remained largely unchanged for most problem areas," the report said.

But the groups behind the survey insisted that the report did not reflect users' experiences of targeted hate and harassment.

"Social media is not just a place we 'go' anymore. It's a place we live, work, and play. That's why it's more crucial than ever to ensure that all people can safely access these spaces and freely express themselves without fear of retribution," Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet, told AFP.

"But after helping to set a standard for content moderation online for nearly a decade, (chief executive) Mark Zuckerberg decided to move his company backwards, abandoning vulnerable users in the process.

"Facebook and Instagram already had an equity problem. Now, it's out of control," Sherman added.

The groups implored Meta to hire an independent third party to "formally analyze changes in harmful content facilitated by the policy changes" made in January, and for the tech giant to swiftly reinstate the content moderation standards that were in place earlier.

The International Fact-Checking Network has previously warned of devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift related to fact-checkers beyond US borders to the company's programs covering more than 100 countries.

AFP currently works in 26 languages with Meta's fact-checking program, including in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.