Google and Facebook May Be Suppressing 'Extremist' Speech With Copyright Scanners (theverge.com) 156
An anonymous reader quotes this article from The Verge:
The systems that automatically enforce copyright laws on the internet may be expanding to block unfavorable speech. Reuters reports that Facebook, Google, and other companies are exploring automated removal of extremist content, and could be repurposing copyright takedown methods to identify and suppress it. It's unclear where the lines have been drawn, but the systems are likely targeted at radical messages on social networks from enemies of European powers and the United States. Leaders in the US and Europe have increasingly decried radical extremism on the internet and have attempted to enlist internet companies in a fight to suppress it.
Many of those companies have been receptive to the idea and already have procedures to block violent and hateful content. Neither Facebook and Google would confirm automation of these efforts to Reuters, which relied on two anonymous sources who are "familiar with the process"... The secret identification and automated blocking of extremist speech would raise new, serious questions about the cooperation of private corporations with censorious governmental interests.
Reuters calls it "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." They also report that the move follows pressure from an anti-extremism group "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."
Many of those companies have been receptive to the idea and already have procedures to block violent and hateful content. Neither Facebook and Google would confirm automation of these efforts to Reuters, which relied on two anonymous sources who are "familiar with the process"... The secret identification and automated blocking of extremist speech would raise new, serious questions about the cooperation of private corporations with censorious governmental interests.
Reuters calls it "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." They also report that the move follows pressure from an anti-extremism group "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."
This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
you are to draw the line at "no censorship".
Apparently our brave and fearless leaders need to learn this the hard way, again.
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Re:This is why (Score:4, Interesting)
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no i mean fear mongering has made people not care about the issue at hand because they're all scared and stupid now
"Now" ?
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It's the ones who want to ban and censor everything that use fear mongering to justify their actions. Really, they just want to silence criticism of their own positions, whatever they are.
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It's the ones who want to force the rest of us to give them a platform that are the problem. Sorry, no-one owes you a soapbox and you can't insist that I mod you up or even that Slashdot allows you to post. You can't insist that Google lists your web site either I'm afraid.
Well, you can't in the US because you believe in maximum freedom from interference by the government, so the government won't step in the make Google treat you equally or anything like that. It's different in the EU, we do regulate search
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It's the ones who want to force the rest of us to give them a platform that are the problem.
Well, you can't in the US because you believe in maximum freedom from interference by the government, so the government won't step in the make Google treat you equally or anything like that. It's different in the EU, we do regulate search engines to some degree, so you might have better luck here.
Wait, so people who want to force others to give them a platform are bad, but when the EU government forces others to give people a platform, that's ok?
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Google isn't "our brave and fearless leaders" and not being indexed by Google is not the same as being censored. The comment is an idiotic knee-jerk reaction that deserves to be downvoted.
Sadly, more morons like you have upvoted it to +5 insightful.
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...next time it might be something extremly important like wiki-leaks that shows us how much our government is corrupt and working against our interests
Exactly!
Who wants to hear or read about that kind of stuff!?
As long as I'm not confronted with such facts it makes my desire for government to regulate/restrict/ban/disenfranchise those things/people/freedoms/speech I don't like and give me boatloads of free stuff much more reasonable in my own mind. At a minimum, it lets me ignore the whole thing and let apathy rule while maintaining the illusion of normalcy. /s
Strat
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The problem, from my perspective is: lack of attention span from American readers and viewers. I do make sure I read a newspaper daily ( a printed paper ) just to get general information of the world, I spend 1 hour daily reading web sites, and in the back ground I listen to BBC or DW. Most that I know, don't know half of the issues going on in the world.
this 'censoring' is nothing new, while I can not recall a source article to cite, hate speech reduction or removal has been happening since 2006ish or 201
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OMG, it's true, even slashdot is in on the censoring.
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Most freedom movements were condemned as terror attacks by the evil incumbents. Question for you. Were google supporting Trump instead of Hilary, would it bother you that they're censoring things?
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Yeah, I didn't vote on that, either.
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Most freedom movements were condemned as terror attacks by the evil incumbents. Question for you. Were google supporting Trump instead of Hilary, would it bother you that they're censoring things?
Yes even though I hate Killary, I don't want my search engine to become part of the echo-chamber. I don't want my search engine to tell me what it thinks I want to see, I want what I ask for.
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Except it's obvious that the targeted material does and has inspired many of the multiple terror attacks over the course of the past several years, as well as fueling the war in Syria which has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
The temptation to continue the use of such tools once they have become accepted as given and therefore an unnovel concept is obvious. But just as obvious the potential benefit of saving lives. Real life is full of difficult decisions warranting more thought and knowledge than simple platitudes and absolutes.
They aren't talking about the targeting speech of the islamists.
They are talking about targeting the speech of the non-leftists in the West.
YOUR speech will be censored. Not the other guy.
Re: This is why (Score:2)
Except it's obvious that the targeted material does and has inspired many of the multiple terror attacks over the course of the past several years
I'm pretty sure that if that were in fact true, our gov't would be doing its utmost to encourage such stuff...
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Serious question: When did it stop mattering that these companies are private entities that can do what they please with their services? I'm not, at all, arguing in favor of censorship, I would just like to know where the line is that they crossed where suddenly they have to uphold the message?
Or, to put it another way: What would have to happen for it to be censorship if I don't allow a particular presidential candidate to put their sign on my lawn?
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I'd argue it's not censorship for you to do that on your own lawn. However, when a single private entity gains control over a very large fraction of all online communication, including even what stories people ever hear about, maybe it's time to hold them to a different standard than we would for most "normal" private entities.
I'd put Facebook and Google firmly in the category of having "overwhelming control of the internet". Yes, it's possible for people in the know to get around that, but we're talking
Re:This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
We spend most of our time in privately owned spaces -- malls, web sites and so on. They may have the private property right to suppress speech, but it feels like increasingly repressive corporate rule.
It's especially repugnant when ostensibly private spaces like shopping malls, built with public money, restrict speech. They *are* the public square now, and if you can't climb your soapbox there, nobody will see your message and you might as well stay at home.
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"Government censorship" is not redundant. Anyone with a channel can censor their channel. That's just what the word means. Google has a very important channel, so it matters when they censor it. Your yard signage is less important, but "censorship" nevertheless.
It's not about "when is it censorship", because by definition it's "every time". It's about "what's the balance between the owner's rights and the community's rights". While I'm strongly biased in favor of the former, once enough of the communi
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"Government censorship" is not redundant. Anyone with a channel can censor their channel. That's just what the word means. Google has a very important channel, so it matters when they censor it. Your yard signage is less important, but "censorship" nevertheless.
Okay. The word 'molest' works that way, too. I could use it to describe something very mundane, but my choice to use that word paints a picture in a rather ugly light. So are we talking about "Google choosing what their services are used for" or are we talking about the stopping of... please pardon the metaphor... book burning? I mean we did collectively choose to use private entities for our free speech platform. Another commenter suggested the idea of a public search engine, if that happened would it
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Offhand, no, because with search results it actually should be a basic part of good practices to have transparency about things like how you're shoving certain results under the rug for Reasons other than 'not useful to person searching.' This isn't currently being promised, and I'd actually want some mechanisms in place to be able to get answers if it looks like they've effectively thrown their weight behind specific politicians and/or agendas. Once again, I'm not as much bothered by the idea that they m
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Another commenter suggested the idea of a public search engine, if that happened would it mean Google would be off the hook?
If people actually knew about it and used it? Yes. Wouldn't need to be public, either. If enough people used DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc that it was easy for the average person, unaware of the censorship by Google, to discover the content.
Google already makes a "heroic" effort to hide from you results you won't like, to trap you in a echo chamber of beliefs similar to those you've selected before, or your demographic selected. That's bad enough even without pushing Google's agenda (or, worse, the government's
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They should really stop trying to censor extremist sites and content. Blocking the speech is just making it harder to triangulate the targeting coordinates for the Hell Fire missile.
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As consumers, it is our job to set the standards by which businesses should operate. If they fail to live up to those standards, it is our job to cease doing business with them. That's how the free market works.
If Google, Facebook, et. al. start censoring their content, even it it starts out innocently at first by censoring "extreme" content, then I will simply move on to other services, and I would encourage others to follow suit.
It starts to cross a line if we discuss enacting laws to control what they
Re: This is why (Score:4, Informative)
It stops mattering when the companies in question have a near-stranglehold on the flow of information received by the public.
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wait, why can't google only list its own products and not its competitors?
private entity and all.
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As for your lawn, if you tell people they can post what they want on your lawn, and then go and pull up all the Trump signs, then yes that is censorship. As long as you are not pretending that it is an open platform then it cannot be considered censorship.
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I expect Internet search, social media, messaging services to be honest - if they claim to be impartial truthful, I expect them to show me results that are that.
If they intend to filter or censor, just tell me.
Re: This is why (Score:2, Informative)
I have to agree. There should be no reason a private entity should host or link to any content that they don't want.
That's fine. However the moment they start curating content, they lose all grounds for safe harbour provisions in copyright law.
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http://www.latimes.com/busines... [latimes.com]
i'd prefer slight economic damage to them deciding for me what i can and cannot see.
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simply that even private companies aren't at their liberty to do as they want when it's been established that it's against the public interest.
the government steps in when companies exhibit anticompetitive behavior, maybe they should also step in when they exhibit censorious behavior.
"...and other companies..." (Score:2)
The Facebook cloning problem (Score:2)
One easy application for this fingerprinting and hashing tech would be on FB itself! My name and picture have been getting cloned by scammers with increasing frequency, and it's now up to about once a week. I'm about to delete my Facebook presence, since I use it only for commenting on group sites anyway, now that apologizing to people on my Friends list when they get spam from cloners is taking up too much of my time.
unfavorable speech (Score:4, Insightful)
this is and will be used to remove any "unfavorable speech" as they so well put it. no matter whether it be "extreme" or not.
Re:unfavorable speech (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm afraid you're correct. Once the framework is in place, we'll gradually see censorship moving from "radical ISIS propaganda" to "racist speech" to "questioning gender identity" to "consonants that make me uncomfortable today." It's already happening in some places; posting the term trigglypuff will get swallowed up by the memory hole on some sites, and get you outright banned from others.
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There have always been sites with such rules, and yet here you are posting whatever you like on Slashdot. All these years later we still have GNAA posts on nearly every story. I think the only thing that was banned, for being spam, was APK's sales pitch, and I'd just point out that I argued against that at the time.
There is room for both types of site. Do you have any evidence that freedom of speech has been curtailed? Or is it just that fewer people use Usenet and spam filters are better now, and you are a
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The best part is that everyone will vote for Donald Trump as the 'voice of freedom and anti PC' and he will clamp down free speech in the name of "fighting Muslims" then everyone will somehow blame Liberals for it anyways.
Are you suggesting that only one "side" is to blame?
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It's a weird world we live in. The damn Nazis are the ones getting stabbed in the protests.
I hate what they stand for, but at the same time, I can't fail to see whose hands are on the knives this time...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/26/us/brawl-at-california-rally/
Re:unfavorable speech (Score:4, Informative)
100-200 vs 30 is not a brawl. that's one step away from a lynching.
cops were there to protect the nazis, because the nazis had a fucking permit to assemble that day.
yeah, very endearing counter-protesters.
Well damn (Score:1)
I would hope this would provide a little incentive to find alternatives to Google. The Yacy project [yacy.net] seems like a good start. Or maybe it's too kludgey like Freenet. Either way, decentralization and ad hoc networks are our only hope for an open and secure internet.
I'm assuming this would be "extremist"... (Score:5, Insightful)
like, oh, pro-Brexit as an example.
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Pro Trump stuff was hitting the first page of reddit multiple times a day, so they silently changed their algorithm so that anything from their Trump subforums can't hit the front page. So, already solved!
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they silently changed their algorithm
And by "silently" you mean they announced the change in a thread that got more than 11,000 comments [reddit.com]?
so that anything from their Trump subforums can't hit the front page
Bullshit. The Trump subreddit can still make the front page of /r/all, with one post at a time, same as any other subreddit. It's on there right now. What they can't do anymore is go on a voting brigade to take up a dozen slots on that page. Neither can the Sanders or Hillary subreddits, or the Sweden one, or any of a dozen others that have been annoying users lately.
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> one post at a time, same as any other subreddit.
Pay attention. The NBA had plenty of posts during basketball time.
The silent part is that Trump is special cased.
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The NBA finals game 7, as a topic, had plenty of posts from different subreddits on the front page of /r/all at the same time. One from /r/nba, one from /r/news, one from /r/sports, one from /r/clevelandcavs, etc. There weren't multiple posts from /r/nba there at the same time. When something newsworthy happens regarding Trump, you can see that plenty of times in /r/all as well, once from /r/The_Donald, once from /r/news, once from /r/politics, etc.
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Like the IRS has done for 8 years to Tea Party and Conservative Groups?
Freedom of Speech is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth is, Freedom of Speech is dead. We have news organizations that purposely change the message of new stories to fit their agenda. We have big internet companies pushing their political agenda via their services. We have the government watching everyone, under the guise of "our security and safety".
Everything you say is watched, everything you post is noted. If it doesn't fit the agenda of who's in charge, it will be deleted, shadowbanned or you'll get a visit from the authorities, or just as bad, a DMCA/Court order.
America was a nice place to live. Soon it might not be.
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> it just took you a couple minutes to spout this opinion to hundreds or thousands of strangers
So you assume, maybe there were many other messages like this that were killed at the firewall, and as we know there are national governments willing to put huge resources in state surveillance. Posting AC does no good if the government is monitoring a huge portion of our traffic.
Re: Freedom of Speech is dead. (Score:1)
stop watching mainstream media.
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Truth is, you've never had it, and you never will. The best you can hope for is the right to stand on a pulpit and spew whatever adjenda you want without being arrested.
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Freedom of *SPEECH* is not dead. What is under discussion here is freedom of expressing your opinion on a privately owned electronic communications medium.
Let's rewind to say 1860. You are free to express your opinion in the town square. A reporter from the press is there. Can you force him to reprint your opinion in the next day's newspaper? I doubt it; this is where your freedom ends, and his (and the press') freedom begins.
So then why would you expect the electronic version of the press - Google, Faceboo
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Of for pity's sake. (Score:2, Insightful)
By the way this is also why I laugh myself hard when people in the US states they prefer private entity over
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Truth is, Freedom of Speech is dead
Freedom of Speech has always been a fantasy, unless you define it narrowly to be the promise that you will not be a criminal for criticising those in power, and even then it has never been entirely real. And whatever you believe about freedom and human rights, the prospects of winning the public over to your opinion are vastly enhanced if you stop posturing and instead concentrate on setting realistic, attainable goals. People in general don't buy into the idea that anybody should have the right to say anyt
Unfavorable Speech (Score:2)
Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist.
Re: huh? (Score:1)
Better people than you. That's all you need to know. Know your place, citizen.
Extremist (Score:1)
dissident, person disagreeing with the status quo. It's a slippery slope, and when the people controlling the Internet can also control and shape opinion, you can bet they will.
not supressing, doing their job (Score:1)
By definition extremist is extreme.
Google's job is to be relevant. Extreme is generally not relevant.
Facebooks jobs is to be a nice social place, extreme is generally not social.
I do not see excluding extreme content from being outside the self set mandates of either service.
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"Facebooks jobs is to be a nice social place"
Oh really? How does it make its money then?
By advertising.
So let's rewrite that statement.
"Facebooks jobs is to lure people into a false sense of security and use their personal information to control their economic activity"
Google is the same.
Your lack of critical thought is inexcusable.
The usual concurrent opinions about free speech (Score:1)
But when will you actually DO SOMETHING about it?
You do realize the goal of limiting freedom of expression is to completely dominate a population? What freedom to fight back do you think we will have by the time your life is over? Do you mean to keep "rationalizing" tyranny and your inaction against it? Do you mean to keep meandering in your thought between the possible "peaceful solutions" while violence is done against your interests?
It's a beautiful thing... (Score:1)
.. the destruction of free speech. I think it's double-plus-good! :)))
Facebook already does this (Score:1)
Post a critical comment on a news story and look at that story from another account and it looks very different. The post is only visible from your own account.
Enemies of [The West] (Score:3)
So really this is not about certain speech, this is about the international companies Google and Facebook picking sides in some sort of cold war that is apparently starting up right this minute between the West and presumably the Asian, Slavic, and Middle Eastern governments.
If an international company is going to pick a side and fire the opening salvo, it really should be under governmental and democratic oversight. We, the people of the US and Europe should have a say in who our enemies are and when, if, and how we start going after them.
Defining Extremism (Score:1)
Let's all be reminded that not wanting to pay for millions of illegal immigrants' welfare, food stamps, school, college, and medical bills is officially an extremist position by our current government, who is currently doing their best to remove the word 'illegal' from all official government documents. [nbcnews.com]
Besides the whole censorship problem.. (Score:3)
This is just sweeping the problem under the rug, instead of you know, solving it.
All they will achieve is to push the extremists to less known and encrypted places, and make em a lot harder to watch for or infiltrate.
why would they have to? (Score:2)
Full suport, as an European (Score:2)
This is a bit thin on details... (Score:2)
If this is about recognizing and deleting already banned video even if recoded and/or edited, it's basically de-duplicating. If this is about actually recognizing extremist speech it must be miracle code...
But I'm pretty sure that the copyright thing just works by recognizing music/video that already has been taken down in other clips.
This explains a lot... (Score:1)
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What's extreme about making fun of people with imaginary friends?
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Nothing. Just like making fun of people with imaginary 'genders.'
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How you go about labeling it as extreme can effectively clamp down on utterly essential criticism--when it's something like the third gender person is suggesting someone probably need to see a mental health professional about the whole Apache helicopter thing or an open Islamist saying those guys are too over the top about jihad, they're very likely right. It can also prevent important discussions about how it may not matter if some people's overly-delicate feelings are being hurt, what's being asserted ma
Re:Extremism (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the problem. What is 'extremist'?
I suspect that if defined by the alleged victims, it will be at least the opinions of those they disagree with.
And it becomes censorship.
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Expressing nationalist or patriotic speech is considered "extremist" speech by many these days. Who sets the bar on "extreme" speech? Once you start restricting things like speech, history shows an organization will only tighten in restrictions.
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Why's that? Who gets to decide what is 'extreme', 'hate', or 'political etherodoxy'?
Perhaps the tree of liberty needs more blood.
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I think you missed the sarcasm.