The social networking giant may adopt a system which will block or take down extremist content..
Facebook Inc., among others, will soon be using the automatic systems which would instantly take down or block Islamic State videos or the content similar to it, according to the sources privy to the matter. Sources have stated that the sites have quietly used up such systems for the removal of extremist content.
This would be an essential step taken by the companies to soundly remove violent contents from the sites. The government had also been pressurizing the social sites to take down the same as the violence had proliferated attacks to United States and Belgium from Syria.
The primitive objective of designing such technology was to first locate and then eradicate “copyright-protected” content. The system looks for hashes –which is a unique kind of digital fingerprint. With the help of hashes, the system removed all the content which matched to that fingerprint. Moreover, the system will look into the attempts made by the user to re-upload the content which has been previously defined as “unacceptable.” However, for doing the same, it wouldn’t block those videos which haven’t been watched earlier.
The social networking giant hasn’t talked about the method which reportedly can block violent content however sources close to the matter and having knowledge of the technology has stated that uploaded content can be cross checked against a data storage of banned content in order to categorize and identify new postings such as lecture inciting violence or beheading.
The sources close to the matter didn’t however reveal the amount of manual work required from humans to thoroughly review the videos marked as matches or near-matches by the technology. The sources also didn’t give in the methods used by the system for the identification of content as extremist. The use of this new technology is essential as the internet companies have had long discussion over the publicity of the extremist content.
Back in late April, US President Barack Obama and other U.S. and European leaders pressurized the social sites over the accessibility of violent content relating to online radicalization on several sites including Twitter, CloudFlare, Alphabet’s YouTube, among Facebook. The companies called upon a meeting where a content-blocking system was introduced. Such system had been put forward by the private Counter Extremism Project, sources revealed on the basis of anonymity.
The main takeaway of the discussion was how much freedom should be awarded to the users and where a line should be drawn between corporate and government authority and freedom of speech.
The companies haven’t yet adopted the anti-extremist group system as they are wary of outside intervention in their affairs.
Deputy Director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, Seamus Hughes said, “It’s a little bit different than copyright or child pornography, where things are very clearly illegal.”
The sound adoption of such system will eradicate the hate speech spreading at a rapid pace. The companies have to strategically strike a balance between surveillance and freedom of speech.
Facebook Inc., among others, will soon be using the automatic systems which would instantly take down or block Islamic State videos or the content similar to it, according to the sources privy to the matter. Sources have stated that the sites have quietly used up such systems for the removal of extremist content.
This would be an essential step taken by the companies to soundly remove violent contents from the sites. The government had also been pressurizing the social sites to take down the same as the violence had proliferated attacks to United States and Belgium from Syria.
The primitive objective of designing such technology was to first locate and then eradicate “copyright-protected” content. The system looks for hashes –which is a unique kind of digital fingerprint. With the help of hashes, the system removed all the content which matched to that fingerprint. Moreover, the system will look into the attempts made by the user to re-upload the content which has been previously defined as “unacceptable.” However, for doing the same, it wouldn’t block those videos which haven’t been watched earlier.
The social networking giant hasn’t talked about the method which reportedly can block violent content however sources close to the matter and having knowledge of the technology has stated that uploaded content can be cross checked against a data storage of banned content in order to categorize and identify new postings such as lecture inciting violence or beheading.
The sources close to the matter didn’t however reveal the amount of manual work required from humans to thoroughly review the videos marked as matches or near-matches by the technology. The sources also didn’t give in the methods used by the system for the identification of content as extremist. The use of this new technology is essential as the internet companies have had long discussion over the publicity of the extremist content.
Back in late April, US President Barack Obama and other U.S. and European leaders pressurized the social sites over the accessibility of violent content relating to online radicalization on several sites including Twitter, CloudFlare, Alphabet’s YouTube, among Facebook. The companies called upon a meeting where a content-blocking system was introduced. Such system had been put forward by the private Counter Extremism Project, sources revealed on the basis of anonymity.
The main takeaway of the discussion was how much freedom should be awarded to the users and where a line should be drawn between corporate and government authority and freedom of speech.
The companies haven’t yet adopted the anti-extremist group system as they are wary of outside intervention in their affairs.
Deputy Director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, Seamus Hughes said, “It’s a little bit different than copyright or child pornography, where things are very clearly illegal.”
The sound adoption of such system will eradicate the hate speech spreading at a rapid pace. The companies have to strategically strike a balance between surveillance and freedom of speech.