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YouTube Will Now Redirect Searches For Extremist Videos To Anti-Terrorist Playlists (tubefilter.com)

YouTube will return anti-terrorist playlists when users search for hateful content on the site using certain keywords pertaining to terrorism. Tubefilter.com reports: The new feature, dubbed The Redirect Method, is part of a four-prong strategy announced by Google last month to quash extremist ideologies across its platforms. The Redirect Method was developed by Jigsaw -- an Alphabet subsidiary whose mission is to counter extremism, censorship, and cyber attacks -- alongside another tech company called Moonshot CVE (which stands for "Countering Violent Extremism"). Jigsaw and Moonshot CVE developed the tech after studying, over several years, how terrorist factions like ISIS leverage technology to spread their messaging and recruit new followers. In coming weeks, YouTube says it intends to incorporate The Redirect Method into a wider set of search queries in languages beyond English, use machine learning to dynamically update search terms, work with partner NGOs to develop new anti-extremist content, and roll out the Method to Europe.

19 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Here it is in action. by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny
    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  2. Who determines the definition of hateful content? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is a video against socialized health care hateful? Is a video exposing the dangers of communism hateful? Is a video against men using women's bathrooms hateful?

    Thanks to the kind overlords at youtube, they'll just let us know so we don't have to think for ourselves.

  3. Re:Free speech is always to nice a thing by whitlocktj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Free speech is a protected right, that doesn't mean that a company has to promote or distribute others ideologies.

  4. Just use one of the other platforms! by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 2

    It's a free and open Internet, right? So, we should all be able to use any of our own streaming video sites that allow users to post content and share with others and put the onus for the content on the users! Right? Let's just do that. Which other platform should we use? Google doesn't have some special rights that we humans don't have, so this should be easy.

    --
    Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
  5. Re:Free speech is always to nice a thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why don't they just remove the videos then instead of messing up the search results.

  6. Re:Free speech is always to nice a thing by gatfirls · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When they are redirecting, they are promoting and/or distributing others ideologies.

    I get that they are a company and can do as they want with their platform but I am sure how you can see their intervention like this being used for not so warm and fuzzy things. Let's say something like they want some bill to get passed so they direct searches to only videos promoting the bill.

    Not a fan of when companies get in the 'arbiters of free speech' business. It's either within your TOS or it isn't. You're either responsible for all content or none.

    'Without free speech no search for truth is possible... no discovery of truth is useful.' -Charles Bradlaugh

  7. Who defines what is hateful by rey2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I definitely don't support terrorist/extremist videos that show murder, violence, terrorism, etc, but this says "hateful" content, that's such a loaded word. As a religious person I worry about the time Google and their employees decide that the very words or ideas from my religious text are "hateful". Not good not good at all.

    1. Re:Who defines what is hateful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you're a Christian who disagrees with homosexual marriage then you're evil.
      If you're an Islam who wants to stone a wife of an adulterer to death then you're just expressing your culture.

    2. Re:Who defines what is hateful by OYAHHH · · Score: 2

      If you are trying to define Christianity you are doing a poor job. I'll help you out. Christianity derives it's name by the fact that it's followers adhere to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

      You will find those teachings in a set of books organized under the title, "The New Testament."

      I think if you actually study the New Testament you will find that Jesus Christ's teachings do not espouse arbitrary hatred towards his fellow man.

      Unfortunately, as noted by someone else, you are for the most part attributing something to Christianity that is not found in the teachings of Christ.

      Have a good day.

      --
      Caution: Contents under pressure
    3. Re:Who defines what is hateful by lucasnate1 · · Score: 2

      Nah, both are evil, the Christian is just using a mostly made up Islamophilia as an excuse for his shitty behaviour.

  8. Re:Going to be amusing by sound+vision · · Score: 2

    Reefer Madness was mildly amusing because of how ridiculously wrong parts of it were. When discussing Jihad, there's no need to make stuff up. (I mean, people do anyway - "Sharia law being implemented in 22 US states" etc. - but it's not strictly necessary, and the effect is far less amusing.)

  9. Re:Free speech is always to nice a thing by mrclevesque · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Why don't they just remove the videos then instead of messing up the search results."

    Exactly, remove the videos or refuse the search, what they're doing is like shooting themselves in the foot, it promotes the idea that they manipulate search results.

  10. To counter censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right in the article

    The Redirect Method was developed by Jigsaw â" an Alphabet subsidiary whose mission is to counter extremism, censorship, and cyber attacks

    I still wonder if some of these people can stop a bit and start reflecting on what they are doing.

  11. This is hard by MpVpRb · · Score: 2

    Free speech is good

    Evil speech can be harmful

    Political speech against the party in power can be troublesome in some countries

    The first search should be uncensored. The following ones should include opposing views. Yeah, I know this is hard to do

  12. No hypocrisy here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Alphabet subsidiary whose mission is to counter extremism, censorship, and cyber attacks"

    So they plan on countering censorship by censoring?

  13. Easier if one is tolerant of dissenting views by jbn-o · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's easy to say "Evil speech is harmful" but not so easy to put any meaning to that glib statement. Noam Chomsky reminds us that free speech means being very tolerant for views one does not agree with which gives rise to the idea that the fix for whatever one might deem 'bad speech' is more speech: "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." Niemoller ("First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Socialist. ... Then they came for me-and there was no one left to speak for me.") reminds us to ask how long until one's ideas are deemed "evil", "terroristic", or whatever other language triggers censorship on a particular hosting service.

    In the meantime, it's easy to upload to multiple places (such as archive.org) and host one's videos on one's own server thus avoiding YouTube's censorship altogether. I know this is a difficult tack to take on /.; take one look at any story having to do with proprietary software and see how quickly the posts advocating software freedom for its own sake are downvoted (without comment, of course, due to the structure of /.'s moderation system) while business-friendly (pro-DRM, pro-tinkering at the edges of giving into proprietary control) posts are left alone or upvoted. A far cry from what /. used to be when it began. I imagine different discussion sites have differing ad-hoc effective defintions for what's objectionable. All the more reason to host one's own blog.

  14. When fascism comes to America... by theblkadder · · Score: 2

    It won't be waving a flag and carrying a bible, it will be from companies and the government proclaiming their desire to protect all of us from "harmful" ideas.

    --
    Earth is a single point of failure.
  15. Re:Who determines the definition of hateful conten by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 2

    Hate speech is whatever the folks in charge don't like. Currently, they're on the left

    Uhhhhh....

    --
    Eat the rich.
  16. Censorship never ends well. by plague911 · · Score: 2

    Even with the best intentions.