Google and Facebook May Be Suppressing 'Extremist' Speech With Copyright Scanners (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes this article from The Verge: The systems that automatically enforce copyright laws on the internet may be expanding to block unfavorable speech. Reuters reports that Facebook, Google, and other companies are exploring automated removal of extremist content, and could be repurposing copyright takedown methods to identify and suppress it. It's unclear where the lines have been drawn, but the systems are likely targeted at radical messages on social networks from enemies of European powers and the United States. Leaders in the US and Europe have increasingly decried radical extremism on the internet and have attempted to enlist internet companies in a fight to suppress it.

Many of those companies have been receptive to the idea and already have procedures to block violent and hateful content. Neither Facebook and Google would confirm automation of these efforts to Reuters, which relied on two anonymous sources who are "familiar with the process"... The secret identification and automated blocking of extremist speech would raise new, serious questions about the cooperation of private corporations with censorious governmental interests.
Reuters calls it "a major step forward for internet companies that are eager to eradicate violent propaganda from their sites and are under pressure to do so from governments around the world as attacks by extremists proliferate, from Syria to Belgium and the United States." They also report that the move follows pressure from an anti-extremism group "founded by, among others, Frances Townsend, who advised former president George W. Bush on homeland security, and Mark Wallace, who was deputy campaign manager for the Bush 2004 re-election campaign."

Comments

This is why

[Anonymous Coward]

you are to draw the line at "no censorship".

Apparently our brave and fearless leaders need to learn this the hard way, again.

Re:This is why

[epyT-R]

Nope. It's the ones who want to ban and censor everything that use fear mongering to justify their actions. Really, they just want to silence criticism of their own positions, whatever they are.

Re:This is why

[swb]

We spend most of our time in privately owned spaces -- malls, web sites and so on. They may have the private property right to suppress speech, but it feels like increasingly repressive corporate rule.

It's especially repugnant when ostensibly private spaces like shopping malls, built with public money, restrict speech. They *are* the public square now, and if you can't climb your soapbox there, nobody will see your message and you might as well stay at home.

Re:This is why

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's obvious that the targeted material does and has inspired many of the multiple terror attacks over the course of the past several years, as well as fueling the war in Syria which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.

The temptation to continue the use of such tools once they have become accepted as given and therefore an unnovel concept is obvious. But just as obvious the potential benefit of saving lives. Real life is full of difficult decisions warranting more thought and knowledge than simple platitudes and absolutes.

They aren't talking about the targeting speech of the islamists.

They are talking about targeting the speech of the non-leftists in the West.

YOUR speech will be censored. Not the other guy.

unfavorable speech

[Anonymous Coward]

this is and will be used to remove any "unfavorable speech" as they so well put it. no matter whether it be "extreme" or not.

Re:unfavorable speech

[TroII]

I'm afraid you're correct. Once the framework is in place, we'll gradually see censorship moving from "radical ISIS propaganda" to "racist speech" to "questioning gender identity" to "consonants that make me uncomfortable today." It's already happening in some places; posting the term trigglypuff will get swallowed up by the memory hole on some sites, and get you outright banned from others.

I'm assuming this would be "extremist"...

[Trailer Trash]

like, oh, pro-Brexit as an example.

Freedom of Speech is dead.

[Nyder]

Truth is, Freedom of Speech is dead. We have news organizations that purposely change the message of new stories to fit their agenda. We have big internet companies pushing their political agenda via their services. We have the government watching everyone, under the guise of "our security and safety".

Everything you say is watched, everything you post is noted. If it doesn't fit the agenda of who's in charge, it will be deleted, shadowbanned or you'll get a visit from the authorities, or just as bad, a DMCA/Court order.

America was a nice place to live. Soon it might not be.

Re:Freedom of Speech is dead.

[acrimonious howard]

I think I agree to some point, but otoh, it just took you a couple minutes to spout this opinion to hundreds or thousands of strangers, costing no money whatsoever, and you could have posted as 'anonymous coward' from your phone on the freeway. It wouldn't have been so easy to reach so many people so quickly 20 years ago.

Re:Extremism

[rickb928]

This is the problem. What is 'extremist'?

I suspect that if defined by the alleged victims, it will be at least the opinions of those they disagree with.

And it becomes censorship.

Of for pity's sake.

[aepervius]

Freedom of speech is about the government stopping you to express some speech. It has never been about the government watching you , which is more akin to the safe from search, and it has never EVER been about a private entity censoring what they want. If google censor every republican for example, then it is censorship, but it is not about freedom of speech. Why do american keep making that error ?

By the way this is also why I laugh myself hard when people in the US states they prefer private entity over the government. Guess what ? The government is bound in most countries by some form of constitution. Private entity are not. You can be far more repressed by a private entity (e.g. censorship) than you are by a government, and you may not vote them out contrary to a government. Private entity are far more repressive and arbitrary than governments (at least in our western part of the world). That is why I do not want private entity having a say in what should be important sector of a country , energy, communication, defense, justice, health care among others.