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Social Media Giants Step Up Joint Fight Against Extremist Content (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the breaking-bad dept.

Social media giants Facebook, Google's YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft said on Monday they were forming a global working group to combine their efforts to remove terrorist content from their platforms. From a report: Responding to pressure from governments in Europe and the United States after a spate of militant attacks, the companies said they would share technical solutions for removing terrorist content, commission research to inform their counter-speech efforts and work more with counter-terrorism experts. The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism "will formalize and structure existing and future areas of collaboration between our companies and foster cooperation with smaller tech companies, civil society groups and academics, governments and supra-national bodies such as the EU and the UN," the companies said in a statement.

11 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    [THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED]

  2. Sounds great... by CharlesAKAChuck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as they have a good definition of terrorist. And they'll need to explain the difference between terrorist and freedom fighter/revolutionary/protester.

    1. Re:Sounds great... by Zemran · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is easy, if you disagree with the government, you are a terrorist. It is a very old definition that Stalin and lots of others have used for centuries.

      --
      I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
    2. Re:Sounds great... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only government, if you mean corporate overlords who own the government that we pretend to vote for. So oppose the corporate message and you are a terrorist. The funny thing, I mean the really funny fucking thing, a dying M$ and three fad social media are trying to control humanity, not for the benefit of humanity by for their own psychopathic greed and egos.

      Take for example YouTube, all it takes is a change of mind by YouTubers ie you are not YouTuber, your video channel is not a YouTube channel, YouTube is just an empty file serving warehouse. So don't stop uploading to YouTube, what you do is run software, to upload all your video content to all video distribution sites simultaneously, effective hugely shrinking YouTube market share. Also link away from YouTube, people are going to see a video, if YouTube does not pay you for exclusivity, why provide it. YouTube is nothing without end user content, start getting that content uploaded all over the place across multiple platforms, eat into YouTubes market share.

      When it comes to twitter, seriously get over that bullshit, who gives a fuck about twitter, it only exist because the idiot twits are carried across to other media platforms, even the main stream media public relations bullshitters, without that carry across to other media platforms, twitter is dead, simply too dumb to exist.

      Facebook, meh, if you are still on it, you are yesterday's social media participant, it's the way of fad.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:Sounds great... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nope. He was not a terrorist back then. He was just a bank robber, murderer and generally a criminal. He turned into a terrorist when he got to power.

      Terrorism isn't limited in its use to the time when you're not in power. Terrorism is simply instilling fear, anxiety or dread in people to make them comply with your wishes.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      no inciting violence, no harassing people"

      Because these terms are subjective? What you consider 'inciting' or 'harassing' may in fact be humor to people with stronger backbones who don't take everything personally.

      That's generally what these companies do, and I don't see any evidence of systemic oppression of political ideas or groups, only a few mistakes here and there which affect all sides.

      Of course you don't, because these GoodThink policies happen to mostly agree with your brand of politics, so they will typically allow speech you agree with and quash most of what you don't. That isn't much of an argument.

      I'd rather let everyone have a say, along with those who would criticize the positions taken. This is how individuals within a society grapple with the truth. The real crime is letting committees and institutions with agendas of their own set limits on conversation in the first place. We already lived through that. We call it the dark ages for a reason.

    5. Re:Sounds great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      See. You started ok 'no beheading', because you see 'beheading' someone is kind of a crime. But what is 'inciting violence' and 'harassing' speech? Is posting an opinion about a Pro-life stance 'inciting violence' or 'harassment'? According to Twitter it is, and hell I'm pro-abortion. But if you can't deal with a message that doesn't make it 'harassment'.

      The part about this that should REALLY bother people is the coordination with governments & supra-national bodies. I don't much care what a corporation does, I can ignore them (and I do), but governments shouldn't be in the business of sensoring thought & I didn't vote for any 'supra-national body', who exactly is the latter that they get to poke their nose in this?

  3. Obligatory by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8...

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
    1. Re:Obligatory by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What should the threshold be? There has to be one, content has to be legal in some jurisdiction... Even 4chan and 8chan ban some content.

      Complaining about the language is just the latest form of political correctness - a silencing tactic to make it difficult to discuss the issues, a kind of newspeak where certain words don't exist any more.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Obligatory by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The threshold is what the laws of the country a server is in require. In Germany, you have a problem with "glorifying the Third Reich", in Thailand you better be wary what you say about their king. The nice thing about the internet is that if you don't agree with such laws, you can move your server abroad. And countries in turn can block access to content they deem illegal.

      But that's the extent this can and should take. And I can only hope that governments are aware of the problem they create if they insist in putting a lid on certain speech. Hot air creates pressure. If that pressure cannot be vented, the pot will explode.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Re:Take away the only law enforcement clue? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Without the social media to guide them, how will the defenders of the 1% find the evil terrorists?

    I know you're being a dick but allow me to enlighten you. What they are doing is removing content that is used to recruit individuals to other sites where the real content lives. What social media is doing is taking down propaganda. The purpose is to prevent more people from being radicalized, not find radicals.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.