Some of the web’s biggest destinations for watching videos
have quietly started using automation to remove extremist content from their
sites, according to two people familiar with the process.
The move is a major step forward for internet companies that
are eager to eradicate violent propaganda from their sites and are under
pressure to do so from governments around the world as attacks by extremists
proliferate, from Syria to Belgium and the United States.
YouTube and Facebook are among the sites deploying systems to
block or rapidly take down Islamic State videos and other similar material, the
sources said.
The technology was originally developed to identify and
remove copyright-protected content on video sites. It looks for
"hashes," a type of unique digital fingerprint that internet
companies automatically assign to specific videos, allowing all content with
matching fingerprints to be removed rapidly.
Such a system would catch attempts to repost content already
identified as unacceptable, but would not automatically block videos that have
not been seen before.
The companies would not confirm that they are using the
method or talk about how it might be employed, but numerous people familiar
with the technology said that posted videos could be checked against a database
of banned content to identify new postings of, say, a beheading or a lecture
inciting violence.
The two sources
would not discuss how much human work goes into reviewing videos identified as
matches or near-matches by the technology. They also would not say how videos
in the databases were initially identified as extremist.
Use of the new technology is likely to be refined over time
as internet companies continue to discuss the issue internally and with
competitors and other interested parties.
In late April, amid
pressure from U.S. President Barack Obama and other U.S. and European leaders concerned
about online radicalization, internet companies including Alphabet Inc's
YouTube, Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and CloudFlare held a call to discuss
options, including a content-blocking system put forward by the private Counter
Extremism Project, according to one person on the call and three who were
briefed on what was discussed.
The discussions underscored the central but difficult role
some of the world's most influential companies now play in addressing issues
such as terrorism, free speech and the lines between government and corporate
authority.
None of the companies at this point has embraced the
anti-extremist group's system, and they have typically been wary of outside
intervention in how their sites should be policed.
“It’s a little bit different than copyright or child
pornography, where things are very clearly illegal,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy
director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
Extremist content exists on a spectrum, Hughes said, and
different web companies draw the line in different places.
Most have relied
until now mainly on users to flag content that violates their terms of service,
and many still do. Flagged material is then individually reviewed by human
editors who delete postings found to be in violation.
The companies now using automation are not publicly
discussing it, two sources said, in part out of concern that terrorists might
learn how to manipulate their systems or that repressive regimes might insist
the technology be used to censor opponents.
“There's no upside in
these companies talking about it,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive of
content distribution company CloudFlare. “Why would they brag about
censorship?”
The two people
familiar with the still-evolving industry practice confirmed it to Reuters
after the Counter Extremism Project publicly described its content-blocking
system for the first time last week and urged the big internet companies to
adopt it.
WARY OF OUTSIDE SOLUTION
The April call was
led by Facebook's head of global policy management, Monika Bickert, sources
with knowledge of the call said. On it, Facebook presented options for
discussion, according to one participant, including the one proposed by the
non-profit Counter Extremism Project.
The anti-extremism group was founded by, among others,
Frances Townsend, who advised former president George W. Bush on homeland
security, and Mark Wallace, who was deputy campaign manager for the Bush 2004
re-election campaign.
Three sources with knowledge of the April call said that
companies expressed wariness of letting an outside group decide what defined
unacceptable content.
Other alternatives raised on the call included establishing a
new industry-controlled nonprofit or expanding an existing industry-controlled
nonprofit. All the options discussed involved hashing technology.
The model for an industry-funded organization might be the
nonprofit National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which identifies
known child pornography images using a system known as PhotoDNA. The system is
licensed for free by Microsoft Corp.
Microsoft announced in May it was providing funding and
technical support to Dartmouth College computer scientist Hany Farid, who works
with the Counter Extremism Project and helped develop PhotoDNA, "to
develop a technology to help stakeholders identify copies of patently terrorist
content."
Facebook’s Bickert agreed with some of the concerns voiced
during the call about the Counter Extremism Project's proposal, two people
familiar with the events said. She declined to comment publicly on the call or
on Facebook's efforts, except to note in a statement that Facebook is
“exploring with others in industry ways we can collaboratively work to remove
content that violates our policies against terrorism.”
In recent weeks, one source said, Facebook has sent out a
survey to other companies soliciting their opinions on different options for
industry collaboration on the issue.
William Fitzgerald,
a spokesman for Alphabet's Google unit, which owns YouTube, also declined to
comment on the call or about the company's automated efforts to police content.
A Twitter spokesman said the company was still evaluating the
Counter Extremism Project's proposal and had "not yet taken a
position."
A former Google employee said people there had long debated
what else besides thwarting copyright violations or sharing revenue with
creators the company should do with its Content ID system. Google's system for
content-matching is older and far more sophisticated than Facebook's, according
to people familiar with both.
Lisa Monaco, senior
adviser to the U.S. president on counterterrorism, said in a statement that the
White House welcomed initiatives that seek to help companies “better respond to
the threat posed by terrorists’ activities online.
Credit:Reuters
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