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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.

20 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 PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

      As long as they have a good definition of terrorist.

      By today's definitions, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton were terrorists because of their thoughts and activities in The Thirteen Colonies.

      Alexander Hamilton was extra-terrorist-ty, because he wouldn't stop singing all the time.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. 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
    4. Re:Sounds great... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's what is missing here. Software that uploads your video simultaneously to all video platforms. If people have to do it manually, they will shy away from the trouble of getting it out onto all of them, but provide a service that allows them to push their videos to all the video content hosters at the same time and people will do it.

      Pipe it through your own server to save them bandwidth and people will flock to that service immediately.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. 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.
    6. Re:Sounds great... by AHuxley · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Re did I miss something?
      "Germany Cracks Down On Illegal Speech On Social Media" (June 25, 2017)
      https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
      China law would outlaw insults to Communist heroes, martyrs (March 13, 2017)
      http://www.seattletimes.com/na...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. 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.

    8. 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.
    3. Re:Obligatory by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      The problem with using the law as the limit, and moving your server to the most permissive place possible, is that you won't make any money. You will end up like 4chan and 8chan, struggling to raise money to survive and unable to grow.

      For a service like Twitter or Facebook I don't think it's a viable business model. Even Slashdot has to block some stuff to survive and to reduce annoyance to a tolerable level. Sure, we still have the GNAA trolls at -1, but all that means is that the moderation system is doing the censorship instead of site rules. And of course ACs start at 0, below the default viewing threshold.

      Since we have anonymous forums I don't see why a site like YouTube can't have a few more rules and co-exist for the vast majority of people who prefer that. It's not like their rules are draconian or heavily biased - people claim they hate conservatives, but actually they accidentally screw everyone pretty much equally. And I really don't have a problem with them removing fake Pepper Pig videos that are designed to trick and traumatise small children. Such things contribute little to the discourse and are clearly malicious. Same as I don't have a problem blocking email spam.

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

      The difference is maybe that on /., it's me who decides what I will see and what I won't. If I read /. at -1, I should be fully aware that I will get to see GNAA postings along with the "apps" and "cows" and all the other /. memes that clog your day and make this site so immensely enjoyable that I decided to put the threshold to +1. That was MY decision. And I do actually expect everyone to be able to decide for themselves what kind of content they can "suffer" through.

      As for children, this is something the parents may decide for their children. Not mine, not anyone else's, theirs. They may block certain content if they so please and yes, content should be labeled according to specs so people can decide whether they wish to see it. Improperly labeled content may well be taken down, but if you label some video that allegedly has cartoon content properly as adult, why should it not be permitted? Welcome to parody and satire.

      --
      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.
  5. Re:Not this shit again. by willoughby · · Score: 2

    Okay, you seem to think you've got this all figured out as to who's who and what. So... let's rewind the clock just a few years and you tell me: Under which of your categories would you put the IRA?

  6. Re:Not this shit again. by religionofpeas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what is a person who takes part in a resistance movement against an oppressive political or social establishment using unlawful threats or violence against the state or the public ?

  7. Re:Not this shit again. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2
    Depends on how many is a few. Some of the earlier incarnations of the IRA probably fit the definition of freedom fighters, when Britain was an occupying power, but by the time The Republic of Ireland was an independent country and Norther Ireland had a constitutional right to leave the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and join The Republic of Ireland if a majority voted to do so[1] then they were definitely terrorists.

    [1] Note: The Republic of Ireland has no constitutional requirement to let them, which could make this interesting if the south decides that they actually don't want them.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  8. Re:Not this shit again. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    Freedom fighter. The key part to terrorism isn't that you are breaking the law, it's that you are using terror as a tool.

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