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A Proposal For Dealing With Terrorist Videos On the Internet (vortex.com)
Lauren Weinstein writes: Recent claims by some (mostly nontechnical) observers that it would be "simple" for services like YouTube to automatically block "terrorist" videos, in the manner that various major services currently detect child porn images are nonsensical. One major difference is that those still images are detected via data "fingerprinting" techniques that are relatively effective on known still images compared against a known database, but are relatively useless outside the realm of still images, especially for videos of varied origins that are routinely manipulated by uploaders specifically to avoid detection. Two completely different worlds. So are there practical ways to at least help to limit the worst of the violent videos, the ones that most directly portray, promote, and incite terrorism or other violent acts? I believe there are.
People. The only way to deal with it on places like Youtube is to have viewers flag the videos and then have actual people review the videos to see if they are in fact terrorist related. It also needs to be written out and clearly defined what exactly is considered "terrorist". Anything less than that is ripe for abuse. Not to mention that automating the process would be a nightmare, as the summary alludes to. Sure, having people whose only job is to check and see if videos are terrorist related, but if the problem is so bad that censoring the internet is the next logical step then it should be worth the expense, right?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Only the army and the spooks needs to know them that well. So remove them.
My father grew up in a totalitarian state and worked in a library, so he was allowed to see much of the censored subversive material. He has taught me a lot about the threats that actually face a population, rather than the ones manufactured by cunning propagandists.
The tl;dr of it is that he thinks the idea that the government should have a privileged position in being able to access speech is tyrannical, unworkable bullshit, and that it's mostly used to oppress dissent rather than to protect proportionately from immediate threats.
No. Those were carefully edited videos Planned Parenthood employees being defrauded by people trying to discredit them.
Some of those videos weren't even that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.