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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.

6 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 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

  4. 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.

  5. 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.