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Many internet users say they want a web world that is informative and troll-free. With the release of its latest hate-speech detecting piece of code, tech giant Alphabet 鈥� Google's parent company 鈥撎齧ay be bringing us one step closer to the goal听鈥� although others criticize such efforts as censorship.听

Jigsaw, a Google offshoot now operated by Alphabet, released on Thursday a new piece of code听that uses machine learning to spot abuse and harassment online. The API (application program interface), named 鈥淧erspective,鈥� is now available for developers around the world to use. While the creators hope the system, which scores comments based on their perceived 鈥渢oxicity,鈥� could help transform online communities into spaces with more genuine engagement and information, and fewer insults, critics have called similar moves restrictions on their freedom of speech.

Perspective is part of Jigsaw's larger effort, called Conversation AI, which it launched听last September to study how computers could learn to recognize abusive language.

鈥淲e hope this is a moment where Conversation AI goes from being 鈥榯his is interesting鈥� to a place where everyone can start engaging and ,鈥� Conversation AI product manager CJ Adams told WIRED.

The new code holds the potential to do so, the team said. Perspective was 鈥渢rained鈥� by using millions of comments taken from The New York Times, Wikipedia editorial discussions, and other unnamed partners, which were rated by panels of 10 people each on how "toxic" they considered them to be, WIRED reports. While the program is still in its early days, an user can experiment with the tool on released Thursday.

Jigsaw鈥檚 founder and president, Jared Cohen, emphasized that the tool is 鈥渁 milestone, not a solution,鈥� with the crucial ability to learn and improve over time. This feature, according to Mr. Adams, makes Perspective part of a new option for news and social media sites to rein in the comments, in addition to options such as "upvoting" or "downvoting" certain remarks, turning off comments altogether, or relying on human moderators.

"The default position right now is actually censorship," Cohen told WIRED. "We're hoping publishers will look at this and say 'we now have a better way to facilitate conversations, and we want you to come back.'"

Several publications have already gone ahead to , including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Economist, according to Perspective鈥檚 website.

Jigsaw鈥檚 approach has also received support from some cybersecurity experts. Entrepreneur Kalev Leetaru, a senior fellow at the George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security, writes that Perspective's focus on fighting harmful words, instead of ideas, differs from past methods. Its emphasis on the choice of language encourages digital citizens to make logic-seeking arguments supported by evidence, he argues in a piece for Forbes, rather than a 鈥減rofanity-laden diatribe鈥� or name calling, which could foster civilized and constructive discussions.

鈥淚t is human nature to revert to emotional attacks over logical discourse and the goal of tools like Perspective are to , essentially using machines to make us better humans,鈥� Mr. Leetaru writes.

The launch on Thursday adds to Google鈥檚 latest initiatives to tackle hate speech online.听In December, the search engine听updated its algorithm to prioritize high-quality information in its results, filtering out hate sites and anti-Semitic auto-fill queries.