
Google, Facebook quietly move toward automatic blocking of “extremist” videos - Jerry2
https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-google-facebook-quietly-move-toward-automatic-blocking-002529206--finance.html
======
jimmywanger
One man's "extremist" video is another man's political views.

Where does it stop? Does a video supporting Trump become an extremist video if
enough people complain about it? What about a video that shows you how to take
apart a pistol for cleaning?

~~~
lanevorockz
Agreed, there is a fine line and it should not be decided by companies.

~~~
dave2000
If it's that company's site then I don't see who else has any business getting
involved. Do you want someone telling you what (legal) content you can or
can't show? Why?

~~~
jimmywanger
Youtube, Facebook, Twitter all loudly trumpeted their attempts to assist "free
speech", especially during the Arab Spring.

And they were only doing that when what they were doing was going along with
the cultural democratic zeitgeist at the time.

If they were more open about "Hey, we're providing you a free service, we can
shut you down if you don't conform to public opinion" that's fine also. But
you can't have it both ways.

Either you support the free expression of unpopular opinions, or you reserve
the right to censor anything at all you find objectionable. You can't say "I
support expressing opinions, as long as I approve of them, and I support
freedom!"

~~~
VikingCoder
Of course you can, and don't be ridiculous.

You can absolutely run a company that allows users to communicate in
interesting ways, and say you support freedom but also refuse to show content
you don't want to.

Beheadings. Child Pornography. Instructions for making chemical weapons. Snuff
films. Animal abuse. Recruiting extremists to kill innocent people from your
country.

I'm really tired of idealists who refuse to accept pragmatism. If you would
really run a video site that willingly hosts those things, then I have no
respect for you. At all.

~~~
deno
> You can absolutely run a company that allows users to communicate in
> interesting ways, and say you support freedom but also refuse to show
> content you don't want to.

You can say you support free speech and ban free speech you don’t like. What?

~~~
cpncrunch
>You can say you support free speech and ban free speech you don’t like. What?

Actually most countries that have free speech do actually ban certain things
that fall under hate speech laws.

Some of the things in the parent comment aren't hate speech. However I think
it's certainly possible for a company or government to decide between what
should be allowed or not allowed, and to do that in a way that isn't morally
objectionable.

Your argument seems to be something along the lines that companies and
governments cannot possibly censor free speech in a morally acceptable way.
It's a slippery slope argument: "ban ISIS and you'll eventually ban Trump
supporters" (that seems to be jimmywanger's argument).

~~~
jimmywanger
No, no slippery slope argument here. My argument is that hate speech is in the
eye of the beholder, and is not well defined.

If we had well defined guidelines, such as pedophilia defined as nude people
under 18 years old, that would be one thing. Although ridiculous (see all the
teenagers who are put on registries for sending naked pictures to each other),
at least it can't be twisted to make something else illegal.

Go ahead, define "hate speech". And if the laws already ban hate speech, why
wouldn't we just punish the people who violate laws instead of censoring them?

And since hate speech laws vary from society to society, do we have to create
a separate site for each country, where the allowable videos shown differ, and
the comments are pruned differently?

------
Animats
What's "extremist"? Dabiq?[1] Stormfront? Donald Trump? The National Rifle
Association? Fox News?

It's worth reading Dabiq to hear what ISIS has to say. Know your enemy.
They're quite clear about wanting to kill everyone who doesn't support their
strict interpretation of Islam. (ISIS cannot have allies; they consider that
religiously prohibited.) The latest issue also includes a long article about
why the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has abandoned strict Islam and is now an
enemy. None of this is likely to recruit anybody who isn't already a fanatic
of some kind. Unfortunately, there are those in search of something to be
fanatical about. Even if they can turn only 0.004% of the population into
fighters for their cause (that's roughly their recruiting success rate in the
Western world), that's a success for them.

Dabiq mentions their 10 videos for this month, and searches for them turn up
articles about them, but not playable versions of the videos. Even the one
linked to "archive.org" isn't coming up. Unclear if this is censorship.

[1] [https://www.clarionproject.org/docs/Dabiq-
Issue-14.pdf](https://www.clarionproject.org/docs/Dabiq-Issue-14.pdf)

~~~
downandout
_What 's "extremist"? Dabiq?[1] Stormfront? Donald Trump? The National Rifle
Association? Fox News_

I think its pretty simple. If a given group has ever claimed responsibility
for, expressed the intention to commit, or publicly praised, a terrorist act
against civilians, that's an extremist group. Whatever can be done to block
their communications with the rest of the world should be done. It's no
mystery as to who they are - they're very public about it.

The same kind of analysis should be done for individuals that desire to enter
the US or non-residents already visiting the US. _" Oh, you were on Facebook
saying how the guy in Orlando was a hero? Sorry, time to go home."_

~~~
dpc59
People protesting against austerity and gentrification have broken windows of
banks and stores. Is this terrorism since in the end civilians own those? If
it is where do you draw the line on censorship of the people who want the same
things but were never involved in those crimes against property?

~~~
downandout
I consider it terrorism when the intent of the act is to hurt or kill people.
I think most people, beyond those being deliberately pedantic, define it the
same way.

~~~
arximboldi
First, that distinction is not so clear for many because the word "terrorism"
is constantly banalized by conservative politicians that use it to attack
protesters of all kinds. We have seen a lot of this during the last few years,
where austerity protesters, mobs preventing unfair evictions, etc. have all
been called terrorists by right wing politicians and media.

The other problem with your definition is that, while it may help
distinguishing terrorist _actions_ from other actions, it does not help
drawing the line on what kind of communications "are terrorist" or "promote
terrorism" to censor? There are many tricky questions, for example:

\- Do you censor everything that a terrorist group says, or only whatever
explicitly advocates terrorist tactics?

\- Do you censor sympathizers with the terrorist group?

\- Do you censor people that share the ideas of the terrorist group? Even if
they do not defend them with violence? But what if they do not promote
violence but they do not publicly condemn the terrorist group?

Etc, etc.

As you can see, the question is tricky. In Spain this debate has been alive
for years with regards to the basque independentist group ETA. This was often
a mess, with even certain independentist newspapers being prohibited at times.
Sometimes these actions made ETA recruiting easier indeed--it's easy to argue
that violence is your only alternative when your political voice is censored.
In most absurd cases, people that are not even independentist or anything
alike are being prosecuted for posting jokes involving ETA on Twitter.

So, it's not about being pedantic. Discriminating what kind of media promotes
terrorism and not is hard. The political implications of censoring are huge,
and there can be unintended consequences. It basically means drawing a clear
political line on the limits of freedom of speech.

I would be afraid if these lines are drawn by private entities, secretly,
without a public debate on what is tolerable or not, and with the public not
even knowing whether they are being censored or not.

~~~
downandout
You raise some good points, but again I think _most_ of your concerns can be
addressed using generally accepted common sense. Yes, I think that everything
that a terror group says should be blocked, and yes I think sympathizers
should be treated as members of the group when it comes to communications.

Let's also remember that in the context of Google and Facebook, we aren't
talking about censorship by the government, or private organizations setting
laws that all citizens must abide by. These are private organizations that are
free to censor anything they wish, and to define their own terms of service.
What they are doing seems to be a socially responsible move. People that are
unhappy with these services are free to publish their stuff elsewhere.

~~~
tdkl
Then those private organisations shouldn't advertise those services as pro
free speech when it comes in handy.

------
putaside
Google, Facebook, and especially Twitter are used by terrorist organisations
for recruitment and propaganda. These videos brainwash young people into
hatred of the west, incite them to leave their countries to go join a war that
is not theirs, polarize, and are directly responsible for suicide attacks.

Sure, information _wants_ to be free, and all that cyberpunk jazz. At what
cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives. These companies are directly
responsible for giving these terrorists a platform. The free speech-apologists
are indirectly responsible for fostering fertile ground for these terrorists.

Yes... blocking this information will also block innocent information. But I
rather see that, than see more innocent lives lost. I say: chase them
underground. This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with
bad intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed, because their
feeds show nothing but dead children being pulled from rubble, Anwar al-Awlaki
propaganda, and anti-Semitic hoaxes.

~~~
vonklaus
interesting. I would never make this trade and find it horrifying.

> This makes more clear the difference between a real jihadist with bad
> intentions, and a pious person slowly being brainwashed

While I respect you view it this way, I have trouble believing this is even
slightly reminiscient of reality. You seem to imply that if not for terrorist
propaganda on twitter, "pious" people would not be terrorists. I suspect this
is an outlandish strawman devoid of any substance.

> At what cost? Apparently at the cost of innocent lives.

This has always been the cost. Many people have knowingly given their lives
for such ideals. Certainly private corporations have the freedom and latitude
to make their own decisions, however, there is a reason freedom of speech was
built into the bill of rights.

edit: it was indicated that driving them underground was considered positive,
I would also like to respectfully disagree. If we accept this is where the
"real" terrorists are congregating (online communities) having them remain in
plain view and analyzing their recruitment and propaganda techniques would
likely be a high leverage option.

~~~
putaside
When "normal" citizens can find instructions on how to create IED's and pipe
bombs on the surface internet, something is very very wrong. This is what
causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not even have to
seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with such extremist
content.

Then when the police confiscates their computer and finds Inspire magazine on
there, they are branded a terrorist and face jail. While there is a difference
between curious rebellious youth and hardcore jihadists, it's very murky when
there is such easy access to real damaging stuff.

Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect.
Right now innocent bystanders are confronted with their propaganda and may
give in (whereas normally they never would).

I know these are American companies, but they are used world-wide. The bill of
rights and American standards of free speech do not have to apply everywhere
though. Europe faces the consequences of this unbridled free speech. You want
free (hate) speech? Fine. Create your own website and host your own content.
Don't (ab)use these big companies who hide behind our-algo's-could-not-find-it
and do not take their responsibility, because they have so many users they can
never police them all.

Real terrorists use both the surface web (for recruitment and propaganda) and
the underground web (for planning attacks). No smart terrorist uses the
surface web for planning. The damage of surface web propaganda far exceeds the
damage of having no intel on surface web propaganda.

~~~
vonklaus
> When "normal" citizens can find instructions on how to create IED's and pipe
> bombs on the surface internet, something is very very wrong.

I disagree. In the extremely unlikely event I have to disarm an IED I would
like to be able to google this from my mobile. I also own a copy of the
anarchist cookbook, and I have for about a decade (acquired around age 16). To
date, I have not committed any acts of terrorism.

> This is what causes naive easily-influenced youth to radicalize. They do not
> even have to seek it out on the deep web, their social feeds are filled with
> such extremist content.

If being aware of (or actually downloading) torbrowser was the only impediment
to terrorism with an IED I would be very uncomfortable. Luckily, I do not
accept your appraisal of the situation.

> Driving them underground would make anyone seeking them out a solid suspect.

If we accept that interacting with terrorist online should make you a suspect,
surely having them be easily accessibly would help lop off the low hanging
fruit. I don't actually believe this would be a great course of action, but
the logic of keeping terrorists (and potential terrorists) in plain sight is
largely pretty sound. Also, how would we verify who was seeking out these
terrorists if channels of communication are largely asynchronous and offline
as well as executed with varying degrees of obfuscation?

> The bill of rights and American standards of free speech do not have to
> apply everywhere though.

Correct. I indicated they do not have to follow the bill of rights, it is a
bill of rights garunteed to be provided by the U.S. Government to its
citizenry. However, the point I was making is that many sovereign nations
allow for free speech because it is fundamentally important. So important, it
is at the cornerstone of the culture of a young and extremely prosperous
nation: America.

edit: I respectfully disagree with almost every comment you have made. I don't
want to levy an accusation that you are somehow complicit (or actively
involved) in perpetuating myths about terrorism, free speech and the
tornetwork but if you are not, I find your rhetoric painfully ignorant.

------
vonklaus
I think an important point which is related is that these companies control
information. DMCA requests and the companies issuing them have become much
more sophisticated. The joke is that Bing is much better for porn. However, I
personally have noticed many files, images and other media have completely
disappeared from google results.

The amount of information on the internet is of course staggering, but no one
seems concerned that it is accessed through a very tightly controlled
pipeline.

edit: not sure how anyone could disagree that the english speaking internet is
almost exclusively controlled by google and (to a lesser extent Microsoft).
Chrome and Edge/Explorer have ~67% of browser market share and google has ~75%
SE market share while bing has ~7%. 2 companies collectively control the
environment and on ramp to the english speaking internet. Facebook (and now
microsoft with the purchase of linkedin) as well as google control the bulk of
people's online identitites.

------
LargeCompanies
Not sure if this a good thing they would just move further underground vs.
allowing it to continue and flag these accounts/send notice to law enforcement
and the FBI. They supposedly track us anyway hopefully they are tracking these
degenerates more then sally sue saying how much she loves joe weiner.

------
exstudent2
I wonder what it is they hope to accomplish by blocking this type of content.
One could argue that what _actually_ happens is a Streisand effect that
promotes the views these companies are attempting to squash. My belief is that
movements like Trump are a direct effect of overreaching censorship by the
left which has essentially created a new right wing movement due to people
backlashing against left wing media shaping.

In short, if the ideas are truly terrible they should be left viewable to
everyone since they'll only turn people off. It's when you hide things that
people become curious as to why the content is powerful enough to require
censorship.

~~~
dave2000
If by "extremist content" you mean religious fanatics beheading people, or
calling people to arms, or giving tips on producing bombs or whatever, then
you are entitled to treat this as "unpopular ideas" which "need defending in a
free society" or whatever, but don't be surprised if sane, rational people
take a somewhat different view and decide they don't want to spread hatred,
nor leave themselves open to lawsuits for the honour of hosting this content
for free. All companies like to talk about fostering freedom or whatever, but
as organisations which exist to make profit it's partly because censorship
costs them money, and also the more content they have, the more of a surface
they have to make money from. They don't really give a shit about you or your
freedom, and there's precious little internal conflict about whether to host
this months crop of terrorist atrocities.

~~~
exstudent2
I'm not talking about videos of beheadings (although there's a case for
keeping things like that around too to help educate people). I'm talking about
suppression of everyday right wing viewpoints. Things like this:
[http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-
supp...](http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-
conser-1775461006)

For context, I'm not right-wing myself but absolutely object to censoring
content based on political viewpoints such as this.

~~~
dave2000
From reading that, the only criticism that seems sane and fair is that they
should have chosen a different string to "trending"; "recommended" perhaps, or
"curated". My expectations that i'm going to receive a much-needed education
in some topic from occasionally clicking on the "trending" link on facebook
aren't especially high; perhaps yours are a little misplaced if present?

Also, I note that that article states that other "curators" denied such a bias
exists. Facebook have denied such activities. Ok, being sceptical, they would
say that. But it could be bullshit spewed by an ex-exmployee So, where's the
study? The data? How do we show whether or not there is a bias, assuming you
care enough to investigate? It's just more conspiracy theories and "typing"
isn't it.

------
alexqgb
As others have noted, the issue is that so many political terms are relative
(e.g., the way 'terrorist' is applied to Middle-Easterners far more swiftly
and casually than Americans who are equally violent for very similar reasons.)

An organization doing what Google and Facebook are doing must therefore (a)
clearly articulate the position on which their judgments are based (b) openly
assert that their position is fundamentally superior and preferable to the
moral order that accepts the practices that are being suppressed (c) provide a
open and defensible argument for selecting one set of values while forcefully
rejecting another and (d) be willing to modify this position in the event that
fatal contradictions appear, or excessively negative consequences result.

In short, these platforms must not just govern, but do so from a well-
considered and articulated philosophy of liberal governance.

Fortunately, they need not start from scratch. There is an abundance of data
to support the idea that nations that have broadly inclusive economies with
widely and equitably representative policy making bodies are the most
prosperous, stable, and desirable places to live. (For details, see "Why
Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
[https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-
Prosperity/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-
Prosperity/dp/0307719227/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466900793&sr=8-1&keywords=why+nations+fail))

By adopting for themselves the governing principles that underpin the most
successful societies, Internet platforms can become greater forces for good.
At the same time this empirically grounded approach will better shield them
from maliciously self-serving people who want to see political and economic
power concentrated in the kinds of small and closed sets of hands
(specifically, theirs).

As any number of examples from Egypt to Russia to Venezuela to Zimbabwe have
shown, those who dominate closed economies and the political systems that
reinforce each other invariably make life a living hell for everyone. To the
extent that these systems are maintained by way of retrograde social norms,
any platform committed to a more open, just society should have no qualms
about disarming those who view civil society as anathema.

------
j3FF3ry
I have never came across any extremist video on facebook, youtube or even
twitter. Maybe if I was actually searching for it I could find it? What sort
of terms would one use?

------
tdkl
"Boohoo, I want to feel safe in my safespace and don't feel icky feelings" \-
modern Internet user

------
dforrestwilson
Equivalent to pretending that Hitler never existed.

