BY MAYA KOSOFF
JUNE 27, 2016
The two tech giants have stepped up their fight using the same technology used to remove videos with copyrighted content.
Silicon Valley has long struggled with how to police inappropriate or even criminal content. Earlier this year, Microsoft, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter agreed to work with the European Union to identify and combat hate speech online. The problem these companies face is that they often rely on users submitting and flagging material, but the concern is that if companies start taking down users’ posts themselves, they run the risk of being seen as self-censoring. Now, though, at least two tech companies have turned to automation to remove extremist content from their platforms.
YouTube and Facebook are among a group of tech giants that have quietly begun to use automation to eradicate videos featuring violent extremism from their Web sites, Reuters reports. Two sources tell the news outlet that the technology the companies are utilizing is the same used to automatically identify and delete copyright-protected content, though it’s unclear how much of the process is automated. (Google, Facebook, and others are already using automation to eliminate child pornography on their platforms.) The companies’ end goal is not to identify new extremist videos posted to their platforms, but to prevent re-posted material that’s already been deemed inappropriate from spreading, including Islamic State videos. Neither YouTube’s parent company Google nor Facebook would confirm the reports, nor will they discuss the use of such automation publicly, Reuters’ sources say, partially out of concern that terror groups will learn to circumvent the technology.
The report comes amid growing calls by political leaders for tech companies to fight terrorist propaganda on their own platforms. Shortly after the terrorist attack in Orlando that left 50 dead, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton began to urge tech companies to combat extremist propaganda from the likes of ISIS online. “As president, I will work with our great tech companies from Silicon Valley to Boston to step up our game,” Clinton said in a speech. “We have to [do] a better job intercepting ISIS’s communications, tracking and analyzing social-media posts, and mapping jihadist networks, as well as promoting credible voices who can provide alternatives to radicalization.” Clinton hasn’t called for blocking content online, though Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and Clinton’s primary opponent, has. Following Apple’s public spat with the F.B.I. over its refusal to unlock an iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooter, Trump called for a boycott against Apple and argued in favor of the United States closing off parts of the Internet to thwart ISIS, though it wasn’t entirely clear what he meant.
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