
An update on our commitment to fight terror content online - j2kun
https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/08/an-update-on-our-commitment-to-fight.html
======
naturalgradient
'More experts: Of course, our systems are only as good as the the data they’re
based on. Over the past weeks, we have begun working with more than 15
additional expert NGOs and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program,
including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the
Institute for Strategic Dialogue'

This makes me cringe. Every single one of these organisations consists of
people with specific political views of acceptable and not acceptable content.

In Europe, the 'no hate speech' idea has very quickly expanded the concept of
hate speech to include any rightwing opinion around certain topics (mostly
religion and immigration related).

More people feel disenfranchised and excluded from the discourse, more
grandstanding around fighting hate speech where the existence of countless
organisations, consultants, experts and so forth can only be justified by
uncovering more hate speech. Quite literally the growth of their economy
requires expansion of the concept. The divide continues.

~~~
Animats
I was about to post that. Those groups have very specific agendas. They
shouldn't be allowed to block articles which disagree with their agenda.

Here's Dabiq, ISIS's propaganda magazine.[1] It's well-produced and in
English. See what the other side wants. There are the usual rants: "We ask
Allah to support the mujāhidīn of the Islamic State against the agents of the
tawāghīt and the crusaders until the banner of the Khilāfah is raised high
above Istanbul and Vatican City". Their strongest ire is raised against Arabs
who oppose ISIS. The West is just the enemy, but Islamists who oppose them are
committing apostasy. They're opposed to democracy on principle. Allah must
rule, and that means autocratic rule by religious leaders. "Legislation is not
but for Allah".

There's a concern that some people will be taken in by this stuff. That's only
a problem for people who haven't seen enough extremist material to be able to
evaluate it. There's a certain similarity to all that stuff, along the lines
of "We're good, because God is on our side, and we have to kill the other guys
because they're evil." This message is available in Christian, Jewish, and
Islamic flavors. Kids should see all of those in school, to immunize them
against such messages.

Will "trusted flaggers" be allowed to make Dabiq inaccessable?

( _" Maybe they is not evil. Maybe they is just enemies."_ \- Poul Anderson)

[1] [https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-
propagand...](https://clarionproject.org/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-
magazine-dabiq-50/)

~~~
forapurpose
> Those groups have very specific agendas.

I'm not sure what that means; doesn't every group have an agenda? I think the
implication is that these groups' agendas are no better than any other groups'
agendas. I think that's clearly wrong; we can't take politically correct
relativism and openness to a logical extreme - we must make distinctions
between good and bad (though carefully reasoned ones). Though I agree we
should be careful, and no group or agenda is perfect, the agendas of hate
groups are not just as good as the ADL's, for example.

> They shouldn't be allowed to block articles which disagree with their
> agenda.

Is that the standard used by Google?

~~~
crdoconnor
The ADL appears to be picked because they're a very powerful political lobby
in Washington. This move is a fairly blatant attempt to curry political favor.

I wouldn't say that there's a moral equivalence between the ADL's agenda
(promoting Israel) and, say, Amnesty's agenda (ending torture & political
imprisonment).

Amnesty got hit by the latest "fake news" google update:

[https://mronline.org/2017/07/28/new-google-algorithm-
restric...](https://mronline.org/2017/07/28/new-google-algorithm-restricts-
access-to-left-wing-progressive-web-sites/)

~~~
mcherm
I had no idea that was happening. Thank you for making this important point.

------
turc1656
“When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be redirected
towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk
violent extremist messages.”

How much you wanna bet that “feature” is going to be used to alter/redirect
the video results for other things like political opinions that Google doesn’t
approve of? I foresee the right wing extremists like Breitbart and InfoWars
getting affected by this. Not that I like either of those, but I think this is
going to be a super sneaky way to curate the feeds that people see and the
videos that are searchable online. Twitter did something recently that was
very similar to this and people were finding that their followers weren't
seeing their tweets.

~~~
yalue
I would say that this is the _only_ use for this particular feature, because
actual calls to violence and extremist messages are _already against the
rules_ on youtube and can simply be reported by users.

Like you, I also find the Alex Jones and his ilk to be disturbing and harmful,
and consider it a bad sign that people like you and me need to qualify any
statement against censorship by explicitly saying we aren't part of the
American far right.

------
simonsarris
Is this why they disabled Jordan Peterson's Youtube today?

[https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/89244921355616665...](https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/892449213556166658)

(University of Toronto Psychology Professor who makes popular YouTube videos
and draws ire from a lot of SJW types)

~~~

In a way, Google is announcing to startups that making a YouTube
successor/killer is still possible. As they degrade their own service, they
open up more space for newcomers and competitors.

~~~
steven777400
Although it could have been coincidence, it does seem like Google is making a
statement with the temporary suspension of Peterson's account that these
initiatives are clearly targeted at users posted politically incorrect
content.

------
Camillo
"Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by
violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all." [0]

"Over the past weeks, we have begun working with more than 15 additional
expert NGOs and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program, including
the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for
Strategic Dialogue."

Note the seamless transition from terrorism, to hate, to hate speech.
Therefore, to protect open societies, we have to put censors to work on our
users. How far we got in a couple of blog posts!

Note that the "No Hate Speech Movement" is "A youth campaign of the Council of
Europe"[1] (so, not a movement at all), and the Council of Europe is an
intergovernmental organization [2], so these are quite literally government
censors.

Speaking of openness, is the full list of NGOs participating in the Trusted
Flagger program available anywhere?

[0]: [https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/four-steps-
were...](https://www.blog.google/topics/google-europe/four-steps-were-taking-
today-fight-online-terror/)

[1]:
[https://www.nohatespeechmovement.org/](https://www.nohatespeechmovement.org/)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe)

~~~
bmmayer1
This needs more visibility. Behind many a do-gooder trying to rid the world of
'hate' is a well-funded organization or government with an agenda trying to
make cynical end run around free speech.

------
eanzenberg
Isn't it interesting how over time what is considered the "public square"
turned from being owned by gov't (free-speech rules) to private industry (no
need to uphold free-speech). Sure you can go run to your local city hall and
say whats on your mind but no one's going to listen. The internet allowed for
widespread dissemination of views/ideas but as time goes on it will be more
and more regulated by private companies.

------
rdtsc
> Extremists and terrorists seek to attack and erode not just our security,
> but also our values; the very things that make our societies open and free

I wish they'd articulate what values those are.

When a company the size of Google embarks on "preventing and stopping"
extremists I am a little leery. Terrorism and extremism have often become
synonyms with "speech I don't agree with". I have seen people called "nazis"
all too easily on popular political forums like Reddit's /r/politics for
daring to criticize the popular opinions. So maybe I am too paranoid here but
I'd take what Google does with a grain of salt.

You say something they disagree with and you might just find your email,
youtube, drive, google docs, and other accounts removed...

------
avaer
It just hit me that if I want to get an accurate view of what people think of
a contentious topic, I can't trust Google or Youtube as a gateway anymore. I
simply don't know what machines or "experts" have decided to hide from me.

~~~
waqf
You never could: any "consensus" you see, the media consensus, the Google
search consensus, the Facebook consensus, the Youtube consensus, the consensus
of people on the street in your hometown, all have their own biases (social,
technological and statistical even if you can escape the political) and they
always had. The best you can hope for is to be aware of them.

~~~
avaer
It's not about consensus, it's about verifiability. When the president
justifies policy because group X believes Y, I could theoretically fact-check
what X actually says -- we unfortunately live in a post-truth world where
that's a necessary check on democracy. I can't do that if Google has decided X
is too unpleasant to be heard.

------
alecco
Today Google disabled a Jordan Peterson's account, including his YouTube
channel with millions of views. This is a clinical psychologist professor who
is openly anti-Marxist (but also openly anti-fascist, and anti-antisemitic).
No explanation given. Just plainly said he wasn't following the ToS but not
particularly what.

Only after hours of pressure from many people they reinstated it silently.

We need anti-trust laws to curve this authoritarian Internet rising.

~~~
zimpenfish
> openly anti-Marxist (but also openly anti-fascist, and anti-antisemitic)

Openly anti-trans too.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
> Anti-trans

A quick (and biased) search turns up:

"His employers have warned that, while they support his right to academic
freedom and free speech, he could run afoul of the Ontario Human Rights code
and his faculty responsibilities should he refuse to use alternative pronouns
when requested."

Now I'm sure there's more to the issue, but that's kind of my point -
increasingly, not ceding to every demand by group X is labelled as being
'anti-X', and ending any discussion.

~~~
zimpenfish
> At the event, Peterson outlined his criticism of transgender people, arguing
> that the idea that biological sex and gender were independent quantities was
> “wrong.”

No, he's actually anti-trans too.

[http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/4/11/peterson-talk-
dr...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/4/11/peterson-talk-draws-
criticism/)

~~~
DarkKomunalec
You're proving my point - both disagreeing with the idea that sex and gender
are independent, and hating and assaulting trans people, get thrown in the
same 'anti-trans' bucket.

Wouldn't it be more fair, even necessary, to just say "he doesn't want pronoun
choice to be enforced, and doesn't think biological sex and gender are
distinct"? Why distort his views by condensing them to 'anti-trans'?

~~~
zimpenfish
> he doesn't want pronoun choice to be enforced

That just makes him a dickhead that should be ignored.

> doesn't think biological sex and gender are distinct

Which makes him wrong, scientifically (his testimony to the Canadian Senate
has him saying that because the vast majority of people express their
biological* sex as their gender, it would violate causality to accept they
weren't linked), and, because he keeps using this nonsense to push his "trans
people are just SJW leftists trying to take control" rhetoric, that makes him
anti-trans.

For more about the spectrum of biological sex (way more than 2) and the
expressed biological genders that can result (more than 2, not necessarily
matching the biological sex) -

[http://www.nature.com/news/sex-
redefined-1.16943](http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943)

------
azinman2
I see a lot of anti-expert pro-speech comments. That’s great and all at the
theoretical government law side of things, but YouTube is a private
organization that _is_ being used as a platform by organizations like ISIS to
radicalize random individuals who then go out and kill innocent people. Should
Google allow these videos to be on equal footing with funny cat videos?

~~~
dilap
To me YouTube being a private organization is beside the point; I would like
the dominant mediums of communication of our era to be open and free, not
restricted and censored.

It makes very little practical difference if the censorship comes from a large
company or a government if at the end of the day you can't say what you want.

And yes:

I do believe in the basic free speech bargain. I do think it's better to have
ISIS recruitment videos (and anti-ISIS videos, and everything else) up freely
than to have some organization sitting in judgement of what's "acceptable" and
not.

Of course it's a trade-off. There is a cost to social harmony from free speech
(& democracy!). China seems to be doing pretty well with a very different
approach; they value social harmony highly.

But I was raised like a good little patriotic American boy, so I value free
speech pretty damn highly, and I find this policy misguide and scary.

Also, let's not kid ourselves -- ISIS is just an excuse. I guaran-fucking-tee
this policy will be used to stifle all kinds of objectionable, non-politcally-
correct videos.

~~~
aaron-lebo
Do you believe that videos of 3-year olds executing prisoners is really worth
broadcasting? Old men getting their head stabbed with a bayonet until they
die? Pilots burned alive?

I'm all for free speech, but why should Google distribute that for free so we
can have more lone wolf terrorist attacks?

~~~
dilap
If those things are happening in the world, then I do think it's valuable to
be able to see them.

Recent example: Trump decided to end the CIA program arming rebel groups in
Syria after watching a video of one such group behead a young boy.

~~~
zimpenfish
> Trump decided to end the CIA program arming rebel groups in Syria after
> watching a video of one such group behead a young boy

Do you have a source for that? The only one I could find is The Weekly
Standard which doesn't cite any officials or sources itself.

~~~
dilap
Yeah, that's my source too, by way of Twitter. I would _assume_ they're not
just completely making it up, but who knows?

~~~
zimpenfish
Stories with no cited sources, anonymous or otherwise, are almost certainly
making it up (or, to be charitable, conflating several disjunct events into a
causal stream that doesn't exist.)

------
falcolas
> When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be
> redirected towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly
> confront and debunk violent extremist messages.

Sigh. The chance for overlap with educational videos is going to be pretty
damned high. Just like past efforts to stop porn have also stopped a large
number of sex education sites.

Also, how are they judging accuracy? That's one key bit of information they're
missing here. What's the escalation path for videos improperly caught up in
the automated sweeps? Their existing copyright flagging mechanisms shows the
inadequacy of their automated systems to date. Who reviews the human flags?
The Alex Mauer YouTube debacle (a contracted worker taking down let's play
videos to put pressure on a developer unrelated to the videos) has shown that
the power is too far in the accuser's hands.

~~~
forapurpose
> past efforts to stop porn have also stopped a large number of sex education
> sites

That raises an interesting example: YouTube has effectively blocked porn, and
I haven't heard anyone complain.

------
joshfraser
The strength of your convictions are only tested at the extremes. You can't
say you believe in free speech if that only includes speech you like.

~~~
DanBC
The US extremist version of free speech isn't shared anywhere else in the
world. Most countries are happy with their limited version of free speech.

And even the US has limits on what you can publish - see for example the
_Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act 2010_.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crush_Video_Prohibition...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Crush_Video_Prohibition_Act_of_2010)

~~~
snerbles
It's interesting that some consider the notion of freedom as extremism, with
all the attached implications.

Here lies individualist-collectivist divide.

~~~
matthewmacleod
Not really. There are very few people who consider 'freedom' in that sense to
be an absolute right; the argument is merely about which restrictions are
acceptable, and which are not.

------
spaginal
Historically, speech isn't censored to protect people, it is done to protect
institutions or governments.

The slippery slope we are careening down is getting pretty troubling.

------
blowski
I honestly don't know what to do about this situation. I don't even know if it
is a situation, or just some drama whipped up by the right wing press.

I'd love to see some real stats. How many videos are we talking about here?
How many views do they get?

~~~
yalue
That's the thing, though. Extremist videos are already against the rules, can
be reported by users, and removed if the reports have merit.

Whether it's exaggerated "by the right-wing press" or not (I find it
concerning despite being left-leaning and not the press), I don't like the
notion of any politically-aligned parties having an outsized role in deciding
what's "appropriate".

------
dilap
Awesome, just what I've always wanted: Machine learning and unelected,
unaccountable groups of experts to tell me what videos I'm allowed to comment
on.

So happy to see free speech is alive & kicking in the west.

~~~
sqeaky
Its Youtube, not a public space and not something government controlled. They
are free to say what is and isn't on their system. What if you made a system
and someone took that from you and they demanded that ISIS be given equal
rights to people with your political leanings?

Don't tolerate intolerance. Thats not tolerance is spineless.

~~~
dilap
But I think Youtube _is_ a public space, one of the most important ones there
is right now. The fact that it is owned by a large corporation rather than a
government is immaterial.

I also think the power Google of today wields over my life is probably
comparable to the power the government of 1789 wielded over its citizens.

Is it really wise to so readily accept arbitrary behavior from Google just
because they're a private company? At a certain point, companies become big
and powerful enough that I think it's reasonable to hold them to similar
standards as governments.

~~~
booleandilemma
You thinking YouTube is a public space doesn't make it so, even if you put
_is_ in italics.

YouTube is a company. It has employees, a business model, and a TOS. It
decides what is acceptable content. You are free to patronize another video
site if you don't like it.

In the 90s, if you argued your local mall was a public space because a lot of
people spent time there and that's where the conversation was happening, you
would be just as wrong.

~~~
defen
In a certain sense, a mall is a public space, though. Meaning, you can't
exclude people simply because they belong to a protected class. A privately-
owned mall is very different from a privately-owned home or club in that
regard.

~~~
joshuamorton
I don't see why you could exclude people from a private club due to their
protected class either. Homes are not businesses. This isn't convincing.

~~~
defen
Are you disputing whether they _should_ be allowed according to our current
laws, or whether they actually exist? There are plenty of women-only or men-
only or black-only or Jewish-only or Chinese-only or ... etc. private
clubs/organizations. For example Augusta National Golf Club only recently
admitted women, and solely due to public pressure / protest; not due to any
legal requirement as far as I know.

~~~
joshuamorton
Whether they should. I'm absolutely sure there exist organizations that break
the law exist (sidestepping the issue of whether or not this does break the
law).

------
DanielBMarkham
Google has a commitment to _appear_ to fight terror content online. They do
not have an actual commitment to fight it.

They have no independent definition of what terrorism is. They have made no
statements about how any one definition of terrorism is better or worse than
any other one. They've done nothing proactively to identify terrorist or
prevent terrorist acts.

Instead, they're trying to do something without actually being responsible for
it. They've gathered together their own pack of cool kids and those folks have
been tasked with telling Google what to do. In this manner the company
actually stands for nothing more than "We've tried to cover all the bases of
groups that are important to us that might complain"

That's not taking a stand. That's just an odd combination of shrewdness,
weaseling, and self-congratulation. Par for the course for big SV companies.
Some huge companies will control what kinds of political posters go up in its
halls -- an act with nothing more than symbolic meaning -- while cooperating
with dictatorships that use their services to hunt down dissidents. Related:
[http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/16/how-social-media-
helps-d...](http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/16/how-social-media-helps-
dictators/)

As tech folks, we've been congratulating ourselves way too much and taking way
too little of an honest look at what actual impact we're having. That's gotta
stop.

------
e12e
I wonder how similar automatic censorship would have affected the Spanish
civil war.

~~~
floatingatoll
Could you expand on this point?

~~~
e12e
One man's Freedom Fighter is another man's terrorist.

[edit: Or for a different point: does this mean that US airfoce reqruitment
videos for drone pilots would be censored by Google in Yemen?]

------
ginreaper
This really stinks. on the syrian civil war there is very little news out of
warzones but that released by Amaq, HTS, or one of many 'terrorist'
organizations. And according to the US who is a terrorist, and according to
russia is a terrorist is all different. Its sometimes hard to track down old
footage of the war because they're all removed form youtube

------
mythrwy
Evil censorship and PC brainwashing run amok?

or is this really

"An update on our commitment to avoid expensive lawsuits and pesky Internet
pitchfork campaigns by appearing to do something about content some people
find objectionable"?

I haven't decided yet.

------
patrickg_zill
If YouTube exercises editorial control over their content, are they then
liable? They are no longer acting as a "common carrier".

------
throwaway91111
You know at its most literal—ie terrorism is the use of terror to gain
leverage—this would imply fake news is the problem.

This is just pr fluff.

------
throwawaymanbot
I feel this is going to annoy less people than the monetary change google
made. So ISIS and Alt-right types/far right wing, are the only people who will
care about this. And again, it's a Corporation's platform, not ours. Their
rules.

------
ruleabidinguser
Meanwhile this has disappeared from the front page of HN despite having a
higher score than plenty of other similarly aged posts on the front page

It's no secret that the moderation here disagrees with the consensus formed in
these comments. It's definitely odd.

~~~
euyyn
I just opened it from my frontpage.

~~~
BenjiWiebe
So did I. Maybe his/her ISP is filtering content on HN's front page. /s

