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Four steps we’re taking today to fight online terror

111 points by MilnerRoute 9y ago

hammock 9y ago
They say they are fighting "violent extremism online" but how can you be violent online? That's a physical thing. Instead, they outline four points for greater censorship of videos.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Which is Google's right to do. Let ISIS or White Nazi rebirth club set their own video hosting services up instead of piggybacking on something they are ultimately trying to destroy.
  - krapp 9y ago
    Ok, fair enough. It's Google's sandbox, they can do what they like. So let's say ISIS and the Neo-Nazis get their own video hosting services, since there probably aren't enough of either to make that infeasible, and they already have plenty of venues for hosting their own material. Then what? What problem does removing that content from Google actually solve? The internet detects censorship as damage and routes around it, remember - stopping the propagation of anything people want to publish is impossible by design.
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      I'm surprised that would be asked. Google removing or otherwise taking steps to suppress this content very obviously (partially) solves the "most important" problem. And that "most important" problem is Google being accessory or providing platform which is a legal and public relations liability. Notice who the author of the article is. Not some engineer. Not a public relations person. Nope. It's Kent Walker, General Council. And that tells you a lot about the "why".
- hacker_9 9y ago
  It is the video content that is violent of course..
- ben_w 9y ago
  Censorship is a firewall for your brain: crude, obvious, flawed, often in the way, yet still better than nothing. Which is rather a pitty, given this metaphor makes most of our cultural baggage into unwanted and unremovable bloatware that has its own set of problems.
- codedokode 9y ago
  You cannot be violent online but you can spread lie and propaganda and some people could believe it. Governments have a long history of doing it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
SCHiM 9y ago
Personally I'm opposed to this, assuming google's goal with these steps is to protect open societies. Not because I think you should be able to post content without restrictions, but because I think it serves society better to get desensitised to this type of violent content. In the context of 'protecting' society: IMO it's better to protect your society by removing or blocking blatant propaganda, but I don't think that ban should be extended to violent/gruesome content. The less you see of it, the harder it will hit once it gets past the blockade. I consider it a healthy human response to be able to see such images and think "Fuck those <INSERT_GROUP_OR_STATE_HERE> assholes", and then move on with your day. Shielding people will have the opposite effect, since people will not be familiar with the possibility of seeing such things and it will therefore retain it's shock-value/utility for the <INSERT_GROUP_HERE>. No matter how much (western?)society might fool us, humans can deal with this. We've lived as savages, constantly tested by nature and the cruelty of life, for most of our existence on earth. I'm not saying that we should return to such a state, but we also shouldn't needlessly cuddle responsible adult people either.
- ben_w 9y ago
  As I understand it, human psychology is such that repetition makes things seem true. We don't get desensitised, instead we start to believe whatever we see is the way the world is, that <group x being executed> means <group x deserved it>.
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  It's not the blood and gore that we can't handle. It's the psychological manipulation. They're using the same psychological tricks that Trump used, that Colgate uses. That every advertiser uses. But now it's war. This is the new war: the war for the mind of man itself.
  - remotehack 9y ago
    Are you equating a fair American Presidential campaign to people who cut people's heads off and record it?
theparanoid 9y ago
Hello Big Brother.
- mistermann 9y ago
  If you ignore the specifics of the content I would agree with you. Now, when this expands to other subject areas, then it is a different story for sure.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    "Third, we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content...." They go on to say that this type of speech won't be exactly blocked, but basically made harder to find. It's not quite big brother, but I suspect nothing like that happens all at once. "Inflammatory religious" in particular, feels like a pretty loose description...almost every religion has some bit that's inflammatory to someone else.
    - Retra 9y ago
      Inflammatory: (especially of speech or writing) arousing or intended to arouse angry or violent feelings. Religious speech is not inflammatory just because some people strongly disagree with it.
      - tyingq 9y ago
        Yes, but something that sounds innocuous to members of one religion can be inflammatory to another. I didn't say all religious speech was inflammatory either. I said most religions have some speech that could be considered so. I really don't get your point.
        mistermann 9y ago
        There are also a lot of political views that would have been considered completely mainstream 5 or 10 years ago that now seem to be considered inflammatory, one example being open borders.
dcow 9y ago
I am vehemently opposed to babysitting society, but violence is not speech, it's action. That much seems fair. I do worry about step 3. It sounds like that's going to silence a lot of minority opinions or screw over groups who post no-so-liberal commentary videos etc. Anything hiding behind an interstitial is just crackpot conspiracy theory.. Google is a negative influence on society bleep. Zap.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
  It's surely better than the current situation of literal neo-Nazis openly talking on YouTube about “white genocide” and how the “Jewish question” must be “solved”, without Google seemingly so much as batting an eyelid.
  - DuskStar 9y ago
    I'd rather have the neo-Nazis spewing their bullshit out in public, where everyone can see how stupid it is. Driving something underground only makes it more attractive in the end - after all, if it was wrong The Man wouldn't need to suppress it, right?
    - xapata 9y ago
      Maybe. It's good to try an experiment to find out what the results are. They can always revert policies.
      - DuskStar 9y ago
        Arguably, the backlash from prior instances of political suppression is part of why we have the Orange Idiot as POTUS.
        Retra 9y ago
        Many people experience political suppression nearly everywhere online simply because they do not know how to communicate in a civil and honest manner. The backlash is not due to political suppression by companies, it is due to the basic fact that they are not welcomed in most online communities. Official censorship policies tend to reinforce in them a belief in the conspiratorial nature of such rejection, but it is not the cause of the rejection. Nor is it actual evidence of conspiracy.
AlphaWeaver 9y ago
Interesting that they didn't address specific steps they'd take to protect their content reviewing teams... Sounds like it would be appreciated, especially in the context of the recent issue at Facebook.
- novia 9y ago
  especially in the context of the recent issue at Facebook. I'm possibly out of the loop, what happened at facebook? Are you talking about the fake news fiasco?
  - AlphaWeaver 9y ago
    In short, Facebook accidentally revealed the identities of the moderators responsible for taking down stories related to terrorism, to potential terrorists. The HN story is here. [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572585
    - novia 9y ago
      Wow.. the real-name policy at work.
      - dredmorbius 9y ago
        So to speak, yes.
jscott0918 9y ago
This is a terrifying step for the internet. These kinds of step lay the groundwork for censorship but fail to consider the impact of these changes in the event that the bad guys come into power or gain influence of these management systems.
- avip 9y ago
  It's less "terrifying" than the current alternative, where people can openly support various forms of extreme violence, get away with it, and monetize on the way. Mind you this "internet" is private biz. This is a pretty obvious "don't vomit on my rug" case. Don't like it? Find another party.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    If cable companies are monopolies, surely Google is as well.
  - bandushrew 9y ago
    I really don't care if people "support" various forms of extreme violence by watching youtube movies. That is WAY better than supporting it by committing various forms of extreme violence. Is there any actual evidence that these youtube videos are in fact driving people to commit acts of terrorism?
    - codedokode 9y ago
      Why then are they posted?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        In hope they'll make people become terrorists. That is not the same as observing those videos actually do it. Also, some of them are probably posted just so that the Western media can find them and scare the population shitless with them, pumping the huge autoimmune response we have wrt. terrorism here.
    - 9y ago
DuskStar 9y ago
"Third, we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content. In future these will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements. That means these videos will have less engagement and be harder to find. We think this strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints." I cannot help but think that this will not be applied evenly - that some political content will be allowed and some will not.
- xapata 9y ago
  That's the status quo. One could argue nearly anything is political content, or art. They're announcing that they're going to draw the line differently, not that they're drawing a line for the first time.
  - zdean 9y ago
    "... extremely offensive viewpoints." I imagine it'll be a very fuzzy line that they draw.
  - DuskStar 9y ago
    There are Leftist movements in the US that are arguably just as violent as those on the alt-Right. What's the chance that these policies apply to both sides equally? Given the history, I'd say not much. And I don't think that's a good thing. EDIT: Unless someone is saying that AntiFa ISN'T violent?
    - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
      The recent controversies at Evergreen College provide an illustrative example. Videos of student protestors bullying professors, ala Maoist Cultural Revolution style, were taken down due to issues with "bullying". It's worth noting that these were original videos uploaded to YT by the protestors themselves!
Fluid_Mechanics 9y ago
Radicalization is a very real issue as we're getting ever more entrenched in our curated echo-chambers - I'm glad they're taking a stand. Unfortunately I fear the damage has already been done, and these policy changes will almost certainly push newly-popularized radicals onto platforms Google has no meaningful influence over.
- f4rker 9y ago
  ya these changes are about 7 years late, give or take
nabla9 9y ago
In the west terrorism works trough media exposure. Fighting it in media is good strategy. Violence itself is ridiculously low volume per capita. If traditional media would step in, it would be major win. Instead of having symbiotic relationship with terrorism, where they hype up the terror, they could stick to reporting the facts and situation and not providing non-stop terror-porn entertainment to audience. Once people realize that terrorism just one small risk among other must bigger risks (like high rise buildings with flammable material) they stop fearing it and the terrorism stops being effective. It will never completely vanish, but it will not attract radicals as it used to.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  >If traditional media would step in, it would be major win. Instead of having symbiotic relationship with terrorism, where they hype up the terror, they could stick to reporting the facts and situation and not providing non-stop terror-porn entertainment to audience. Once people realize that terrorism just one small risk among other must bigger risks (like high rise buildings with flammable material) they stop fearing it and the terrorism stops being effective. It will never completely vanish, but it will not attract radicals as it used to. x2. Traditional media outlets are a massive force multiplier for anyone attempting to terrorize through violence. I understand they have an economic interest in hyping up that sort of thing but maximizing the visibility and publicity of a terrorist act is helping them, not hurting them.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Yes. This is most obvious when comparing say an "ISIS inspired gun attack that killed 3 people" vs a ransom mass shooting attack where 20 died. The former is way more mediatized reported on, while on the latter it's recommended "not to politicize the event." But for the terror attack every war-nut and surveillance nut come out to call for bigger military budgets and more surveillance.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    And across the pond, such news are also used as a proof that immigrants fleeing the Middle East are evil terrorists and will kill us all.
lossolo 9y ago
Democracy has it's flaws, but I don't know any other system that works better for society today. One of democracy flaw is balance between freedom and safety, you can't have both. You can easily resolve this (terrorism) problem in totalitarian regimes (look at Kadyrow and Chechen Republic) but whole society will pay price for that. On the other hand it's easy to criticize any censorship like moves but radical islam ideology spreads like a cancer through Twitter, youtube and other social networks. You can fight terrorists, kill them but you can't kill the ideology. If you can't kill ideology you need to control it's spreading. What tools do we have to do that aside from moderating content? Lately I was watching some live stream on youtube about UK terrorist attack to get information about what's happening. I've seen what couple of thousand people wrote on the chat below the video. I didn't seen so much hate, intolerance, racism, fascism from so many people at same time in my life. I've closed it because I couldn't read that, the problem is that probably many young people didn't... This is very hard problem without any satisfying solution. On one hand we don't want to give up our freedom of speech, we are fearful that some evil actor will use it to manipulate our society, on the other hand, ask parent of a dead kid that died in last UK attacks or any other attacks, ask yourself, what you would give up to get your dead child back.
- megous 9y ago
  > You can fight terrorists, kill them but you can't kill the ideology. If you can't kill ideology you need to control it's spreading. What tools do we have to do that aside from moderating content? I'm somewhat hopeful for the "Redirect Method" method mentioned in the article. If the other content is not ridiculing and inflammatory, but reasonable, and fact based and balanced, it may actually work and be a good thing for some people. > UK attacks or any other attacks, ask yourself, what you would give up to get your dead child back. There's no getting back. Questions should be asked by regular people who didn't experience any harm yet. And also it should not only be selfish questions, but questions like "What harm I'm willing to inflict on others (inside and outside of my country) in the name of my supposed protection?"
- newscracker 9y ago
  Frankly speaking, my observations on the actions and expectations by various "democratic governments" around the world lead me to conclude that the world as we know it is fast moving to "totalitarian democratic regimes", where instead of one totalitarian leader/pack controlling and oppressing people for generations (like in the case of dictatorships), we have the illusion that we have the freedom to vote out and vote in different parties/leaders, who eventually toe the lines of the previous elected governments and end up making things even worse overall. Maybe I was naive and ignorant and all this was happening all along over decades and centuries. The increasing tilt in the balance of power toward the state, on the balance of power equation between the state and the individual, is quite alarming. It seems to me that world over, we're allowing monopolistic views and policies to grow, to the detriment of common people. Terror and terrorism are very useful for those in power to gain even more power. Terrorists who claim to fight for freedom are winning by showing practically that those in power are continually curbing our freedoms. With such policies, tech companies are just joining forces with "democratic oppressive governments" in making them more powerful. I do not see a clear and easy solution for these problems.
f4rker 9y ago
Google owns its servers - they can do whatever they want with them. You dont have a "right" to use google, youtube, etc. Also, you dont HAVE to use them. Given this - obviously hate groups do not have a "right" to upload whatever they want to Google services and servers.
blfr 9y ago
I don't believe that there is a problem with terrorism online or that such a thing as online terror exists. Only the most feeble can be terrorised through the screen. The problem is that there are terrorists among us who are willing to bomb, stab, or run people down with a truck. That there are entire communities where this either receives support or is at least tolerated. It has very little to do with technology. They don't do it because they saw an ISIS video on YouTube or a post on Facebook. I doubt this is even a minor factor. Hodgkinson watched The Rachel Maddow Show. On cable.
- Jarwain 9y ago
  I wouldn't say that it's about individuals being terrorized through the screen. I'd say that it's at-risk individuals who are persuaded to radicalize through the internet. By at-risk, I refer to individuals who may be suffering personal issues in their life, and are susceptible to the messaging used by terrorist recruiters.
  - forgottenpass 9y ago
    If there is one thing at-risk people respond positively to, it's ham-fisted social intervention that DGAF about them and openly seeks to control their behavior.
WatchDog 9y ago
This is clearly in response to the call from several world leaders for more participation from google et al. in combating terrorism online. Theresa May, as well as some Australian leaders have made very general statements that the big tech companies are not doing enough to fight terrorism. I expect that these statements are merely a prelude some announcement of legislation, seeking even greater government powers and access to googles data. I imagine law enforcement would rather have detailed identity information on the people consuming the content, rather than simply having the content removed more efficiently. So while removing propaganda and violent videos from youtube is just going to drive the traffic elsewhere, at least googles action may help resist further government encroachment on our online privacy.
wowSuchTerror 9y ago
to fight online terror 1. identify extremist and terrorism-related videos 2. increase the number of independent experts 3. a tougher stance on videos 4. expand its role in counter-radicalisation efforts But I'm not terrified by things that happen online. Least of all videos of events in the past. And, to be honest, I've seen plenty of NSFW videos. Let's not kid ourselves. Terrorism has pretty much nothing to do with videos. Radicalization has more to do with the social realities faced on the ground, day after day, as we live our lives. Alienation and the misery of slums, and hopelessness of monotony without progress, are what lead to terror. The true effects of propaganda are over-stated and over-imagined.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  Yes, but that's a less useful story for the people and organizations built on gathering ever more power, so the alternative will be repeated until it sticks. Given the number of people in this thread who take the official narrative at face value, it looks like it's working.
avaer 9y ago
This scares me in ways terrorism never has. I'm not sure terrorism has ever accomplished its goal to effect radical change. But a powerful entity ostensibly protecting us from a group perceived as a common evil that's not worth debating?
bamboozled 9y ago
I truly hope these changes will include the US and Allied forces combat footage. I've seen videos on YouTube contain some of the most shockingly needless violence with complimentary cheering and derogatory language used by British and US soldiers (often directed towards foreign people) one can imagine, disturbing. It seemed like footage aimed at radicalising people to me.
- 3131s 9y ago
  Do you mean to say that the footage should be censored? I think their crimes should be seen be all. A better stop-gap measure against the radicalization of American terrorists would be to prevent the DoD from recruiting at high schools, at sporting events, in movies and video games, etc.
dcow 9y ago
This is has become another one of those mysteriously-disappeared-from-the-front-page-of-hacker-news posts.
bhami 9y ago
Let's see, this is the same Google/ YouTube that marks dozens of PragerU videos as "restricted", despite three Wall Street Journal editorials protesting that. The same YouTube that has been demonetizing Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, and other conservatives. In summary, Google has long proven that they have an unapologetic Leftist agenda.
- patrickg_zill 9y ago
  Remember that in the last election, virtually zero newspaper, magazine (eg The Atlantic) or any other media outlet endorsed Trump in their editorials. And yet these same organizations assure us they will have clearly defined and wholly impartial standards. Uh huh...
bhami 9y ago
Let's see, this is the same Google/ YouTube that marks dozens of PragerU videos as "restricted", despite three Wall Street Journal editorials protesting that. The same YouTube that has been demonetizing Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, and other conservatives. In summary, Google has long proven that they have an unapologetic Leftist agenda.
nippples 9y ago
> We have also recently committed to working with industry colleagues—including Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter All of those platforms that are notoriously bad at curbing terrorism and great at promoting the most asinine "I can't believe it's not a troll" social justice concerns. Also, not to mention present day Twitter gets a lot of money from wahabbi-funding Saudi Royals: https://qz.com/131532/meet-the-people-and-funds-that-stand-to-profit-from-twitters-ipo/ https://qz.com/131532/meet-the-people-and-funds-that-stand-t...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
pfortuny 9y ago
So instead of the rule of law we have reached the rule of google. Funny development.
wiz21c 9y ago
From YouTube Hero's Program rules : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7159025 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7159025 >>> Participation in the Program by some participants may be restricted (e.g., no or limited perks), including persons who are government officials, including (i) government employees; (ii) candidates for public office; and (iii) employees of government-owned or government-controlled companies, public international organizations, and political parties. that tells much...
- creepydata 9y ago
  What does it tell?
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    It tells that Google is completely opaque on who gets hired and who doesn't (because the sentence is fuzzy). Google is a private company so it seems logical that they have the last word. However, given the size of Google, I'd be happy if the ethical argument about what is an acceptable video would come at the table too. The fact that Google tries to do something about terrorism is absolutely not equal to the fact that it is efficient at that. For us to know that, we must be able to review their results at that (and how do we even define a result in this area :-/ ) as well as their methods (which requires transparency).
a_imho 9y ago
I'm rather skeptical when terrorism (or Lovejoy) is invoked as a reason for more censorship, hope it turns out well this time. we are working with Jigsaw to implement the “Redirect Method” more broadly across Europe. This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential Isis recruits, It is not really clear why is Europe specifically targeted.
- klez 9y ago
  > It is not really clear why is Europe specifically targeted If you mean "targeted by attacks" I'm not sure why. If you mean "targeted with this method" is because most of these kinds of acts in the West happened in Europe and not somewhere else. Also, IIRC, most of the attacks came from people born here, not immigrants, so it wouldn't make much sense to target wannabe attackers directly in the Middle East.
amelius 9y ago
Will every internet company have to reinvent their own counter-terrorism tools? That doesn't sound very efficient to me. Also, isn't this a task for governments?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I'm more worried about government getting involved than some loss of efficiency.
TausAmmer 9y ago
Лайки Крутятся, мемасы мутятся.
tdkl 9y ago
Professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson explains the phenomenon of PC, that's widespread today and brought this new means of censorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PI5JGTA1WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PI5JGTA1WI
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
I should start an over/under pool on how soon we'll start seeing the "OMG they banned my channel for THIS, and there's no person within 1000 miles I can find to fix it" type of posts.
sashok_bg 9y ago
more and more regulation = less freedom Simple equation, no way out of it
sashok_bg 9y ago
more and more regulation = less freedom Simple equation, no way out of it
camus2 9y ago
That's an excellent news. I was absolutely disgusted by the amount of pro Daesh content on Youtube 2/3 years ago where you could see their videos that became famous for their high production value. Youtube absolutely contributed the spread of fundamentalism no question. And there are still a bunch of hateful Nasheed easily accessible but Youtube is still not removing them because "it's music" ? outrageous ...

111 points by MilnerRoute 9y ago

They say they are fighting "violent extremism online" but how can you be violent online? That's a physical thing. Instead, they outline four points for greater censorship of videos.

mythrwy 9y ago
Which is Google's right to do. Let ISIS or White Nazi rebirth club set their own video hosting services up instead of piggybacking on something they are ultimately trying to destroy.
- krapp 9y ago
  Ok, fair enough. It's Google's sandbox, they can do what they like. So let's say ISIS and the Neo-Nazis get their own video hosting services, since there probably aren't enough of either to make that infeasible, and they already have plenty of venues for hosting their own material. Then what? What problem does removing that content from Google actually solve? The internet detects censorship as damage and routes around it, remember - stopping the propagation of anything people want to publish is impossible by design.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    I'm surprised that would be asked. Google removing or otherwise taking steps to suppress this content very obviously (partially) solves the "most important" problem. And that "most important" problem is Google being accessory or providing platform which is a legal and public relations liability. Notice who the author of the article is. Not some engineer. Not a public relations person. Nope. It's Kent Walker, General Council. And that tells you a lot about the "why".
hacker_9 9y ago
It is the video content that is violent of course..
ben_w 9y ago
Censorship is a firewall for your brain: crude, obvious, flawed, often in the way, yet still better than nothing. Which is rather a pitty, given this metaphor makes most of our cultural baggage into unwanted and unremovable bloatware that has its own set of problems.
codedokode 9y ago
You cannot be violent online but you can spread lie and propaganda and some people could believe it. Governments have a long history of doing it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

SCHiM 9y ago

Personally I'm opposed to this, assuming google's goal with these steps is to protect open societies. Not because I think you should be able to post content without restrictions, but because I think it serves society better to get desensitised to this type of violent content. In the context of 'protecting' society: IMO it's better to protect your society by removing or blocking blatant propaganda, but I don't think that ban should be extended to violent/gruesome content. The less you see of it, the harder it will hit once it gets past the blockade. I consider it a healthy human response to be able to see such images and think "Fuck those <INSERT_GROUP_OR_STATE_HERE> assholes", and then move on with your day. Shielding people will have the opposite effect, since people will not be familiar with the possibility of seeing such things and it will therefore retain it's shock-value/utility for the <INSERT_GROUP_HERE>. No matter how much (western?)society might fool us, humans can deal with this. We've lived as savages, constantly tested by nature and the cruelty of life, for most of our existence on earth. I'm not saying that we should return to such a state, but we also shouldn't needlessly cuddle responsible adult people either.

ben_w 9y ago
As I understand it, human psychology is such that repetition makes things seem true. We don't get desensitised, instead we start to believe whatever we see is the way the world is, that <group x being executed> means <group x deserved it>.
killjoywashere 9y ago
It's not the blood and gore that we can't handle. It's the psychological manipulation. They're using the same psychological tricks that Trump used, that Colgate uses. That every advertiser uses. But now it's war. This is the new war: the war for the mind of man itself.
- remotehack 9y ago
  Are you equating a fair American Presidential campaign to people who cut people's heads off and record it?

theparanoid 9y ago

Hello Big Brother.

mistermann 9y ago
If you ignore the specifics of the content I would agree with you. Now, when this expands to other subject areas, then it is a different story for sure.
- tyingq 9y ago
  "Third, we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content...." They go on to say that this type of speech won't be exactly blocked, but basically made harder to find. It's not quite big brother, but I suspect nothing like that happens all at once. "Inflammatory religious" in particular, feels like a pretty loose description...almost every religion has some bit that's inflammatory to someone else.
  - Retra 9y ago
    Inflammatory: (especially of speech or writing) arousing or intended to arouse angry or violent feelings. Religious speech is not inflammatory just because some people strongly disagree with it.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      Yes, but something that sounds innocuous to members of one religion can be inflammatory to another. I didn't say all religious speech was inflammatory either. I said most religions have some speech that could be considered so. I really don't get your point.
      - mistermann 9y ago
        There are also a lot of political views that would have been considered completely mainstream 5 or 10 years ago that now seem to be considered inflammatory, one example being open borders.

dcow 9y ago

I am vehemently opposed to babysitting society, but violence is not speech, it's action. That much seems fair. I do worry about step 3. It sounds like that's going to silence a lot of minority opinions or screw over groups who post no-so-liberal commentary videos etc. Anything hiding behind an interstitial is just crackpot conspiracy theory.. Google is a negative influence on society bleep. Zap.

TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
It's surely better than the current situation of literal neo-Nazis openly talking on YouTube about “white genocide” and how the “Jewish question” must be “solved”, without Google seemingly so much as batting an eyelid.
- DuskStar 9y ago
  I'd rather have the neo-Nazis spewing their bullshit out in public, where everyone can see how stupid it is. Driving something underground only makes it more attractive in the end - after all, if it was wrong The Man wouldn't need to suppress it, right?
  - xapata 9y ago
    Maybe. It's good to try an experiment to find out what the results are. They can always revert policies.
    - DuskStar 9y ago
      Arguably, the backlash from prior instances of political suppression is part of why we have the Orange Idiot as POTUS.
      - Retra 9y ago
        Many people experience political suppression nearly everywhere online simply because they do not know how to communicate in a civil and honest manner. The backlash is not due to political suppression by companies, it is due to the basic fact that they are not welcomed in most online communities. Official censorship policies tend to reinforce in them a belief in the conspiratorial nature of such rejection, but it is not the cause of the rejection. Nor is it actual evidence of conspiracy.

AlphaWeaver 9y ago

Interesting that they didn't address specific steps they'd take to protect their content reviewing teams... Sounds like it would be appreciated, especially in the context of the recent issue at Facebook.

novia 9y ago
especially in the context of the recent issue at Facebook. I'm possibly out of the loop, what happened at facebook? Are you talking about the fake news fiasco?
- AlphaWeaver 9y ago
  In short, Facebook accidentally revealed the identities of the moderators responsible for taking down stories related to terrorism, to potential terrorists. The HN story is here. [0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14572585
  - novia 9y ago
    Wow.. the real-name policy at work.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      So to speak, yes.

jscott0918 9y ago

This is a terrifying step for the internet. These kinds of step lay the groundwork for censorship but fail to consider the impact of these changes in the event that the bad guys come into power or gain influence of these management systems.

avip 9y ago
It's less "terrifying" than the current alternative, where people can openly support various forms of extreme violence, get away with it, and monetize on the way. Mind you this "internet" is private biz. This is a pretty obvious "don't vomit on my rug" case. Don't like it? Find another party.
- weberc2 9y ago
  If cable companies are monopolies, surely Google is as well.
- bandushrew 9y ago
  I really don't care if people "support" various forms of extreme violence by watching youtube movies. That is WAY better than supporting it by committing various forms of extreme violence. Is there any actual evidence that these youtube videos are in fact driving people to commit acts of terrorism?
  - codedokode 9y ago
    Why then are they posted?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      In hope they'll make people become terrorists. That is not the same as observing those videos actually do it. Also, some of them are probably posted just so that the Western media can find them and scare the population shitless with them, pumping the huge autoimmune response we have wrt. terrorism here.
  - 9y ago

DuskStar 9y ago

"Third, we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content. In future these will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements. That means these videos will have less engagement and be harder to find. We think this strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints." I cannot help but think that this will not be applied evenly - that some political content will be allowed and some will not.

xapata 9y ago
That's the status quo. One could argue nearly anything is political content, or art. They're announcing that they're going to draw the line differently, not that they're drawing a line for the first time.
- zdean 9y ago
  "... extremely offensive viewpoints." I imagine it'll be a very fuzzy line that they draw.
- DuskStar 9y ago
  There are Leftist movements in the US that are arguably just as violent as those on the alt-Right. What's the chance that these policies apply to both sides equally? Given the history, I'd say not much. And I don't think that's a good thing. EDIT: Unless someone is saying that AntiFa ISN'T violent?
  - ithinkinstereo 9y ago
    The recent controversies at Evergreen College provide an illustrative example. Videos of student protestors bullying professors, ala Maoist Cultural Revolution style, were taken down due to issues with "bullying". It's worth noting that these were original videos uploaded to YT by the protestors themselves!

Fluid_Mechanics 9y ago

Radicalization is a very real issue as we're getting ever more entrenched in our curated echo-chambers - I'm glad they're taking a stand. Unfortunately I fear the damage has already been done, and these policy changes will almost certainly push newly-popularized radicals onto platforms Google has no meaningful influence over.

f4rker 9y ago
ya these changes are about 7 years late, give or take

nabla9 9y ago

In the west terrorism works trough media exposure. Fighting it in media is good strategy. Violence itself is ridiculously low volume per capita. If traditional media would step in, it would be major win. Instead of having symbiotic relationship with terrorism, where they hype up the terror, they could stick to reporting the facts and situation and not providing non-stop terror-porn entertainment to audience. Once people realize that terrorism just one small risk among other must bigger risks (like high rise buildings with flammable material) they stop fearing it and the terrorism stops being effective. It will never completely vanish, but it will not attract radicals as it used to.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>If traditional media would step in, it would be major win. Instead of having symbiotic relationship with terrorism, where they hype up the terror, they could stick to reporting the facts and situation and not providing non-stop terror-porn entertainment to audience. Once people realize that terrorism just one small risk among other must bigger risks (like high rise buildings with flammable material) they stop fearing it and the terrorism stops being effective. It will never completely vanish, but it will not attract radicals as it used to. x2. Traditional media outlets are a massive force multiplier for anyone attempting to terrorize through violence. I understand they have an economic interest in hyping up that sort of thing but maximizing the visibility and publicity of a terrorist act is helping them, not hurting them.
mtgx 9y ago
Yes. This is most obvious when comparing say an "ISIS inspired gun attack that killed 3 people" vs a ransom mass shooting attack where 20 died. The former is way more mediatized reported on, while on the latter it's recommended "not to politicize the event." But for the terror attack every war-nut and surveillance nut come out to call for bigger military budgets and more surveillance.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  And across the pond, such news are also used as a proof that immigrants fleeing the Middle East are evil terrorists and will kill us all.

lossolo 9y ago

Democracy has it's flaws, but I don't know any other system that works better for society today. One of democracy flaw is balance between freedom and safety, you can't have both. You can easily resolve this (terrorism) problem in totalitarian regimes (look at Kadyrow and Chechen Republic) but whole society will pay price for that. On the other hand it's easy to criticize any censorship like moves but radical islam ideology spreads like a cancer through Twitter, youtube and other social networks. You can fight terrorists, kill them but you can't kill the ideology. If you can't kill ideology you need to control it's spreading. What tools do we have to do that aside from moderating content? Lately I was watching some live stream on youtube about UK terrorist attack to get information about what's happening. I've seen what couple of thousand people wrote on the chat below the video. I didn't seen so much hate, intolerance, racism, fascism from so many people at same time in my life. I've closed it because I couldn't read that, the problem is that probably many young people didn't... This is very hard problem without any satisfying solution. On one hand we don't want to give up our freedom of speech, we are fearful that some evil actor will use it to manipulate our society, on the other hand, ask parent of a dead kid that died in last UK attacks or any other attacks, ask yourself, what you would give up to get your dead child back.

megous 9y ago
> You can fight terrorists, kill them but you can't kill the ideology. If you can't kill ideology you need to control it's spreading. What tools do we have to do that aside from moderating content? I'm somewhat hopeful for the "Redirect Method" method mentioned in the article. If the other content is not ridiculing and inflammatory, but reasonable, and fact based and balanced, it may actually work and be a good thing for some people. > UK attacks or any other attacks, ask yourself, what you would give up to get your dead child back. There's no getting back. Questions should be asked by regular people who didn't experience any harm yet. And also it should not only be selfish questions, but questions like "What harm I'm willing to inflict on others (inside and outside of my country) in the name of my supposed protection?"
newscracker 9y ago
Frankly speaking, my observations on the actions and expectations by various "democratic governments" around the world lead me to conclude that the world as we know it is fast moving to "totalitarian democratic regimes", where instead of one totalitarian leader/pack controlling and oppressing people for generations (like in the case of dictatorships), we have the illusion that we have the freedom to vote out and vote in different parties/leaders, who eventually toe the lines of the previous elected governments and end up making things even worse overall. Maybe I was naive and ignorant and all this was happening all along over decades and centuries. The increasing tilt in the balance of power toward the state, on the balance of power equation between the state and the individual, is quite alarming. It seems to me that world over, we're allowing monopolistic views and policies to grow, to the detriment of common people. Terror and terrorism are very useful for those in power to gain even more power. Terrorists who claim to fight for freedom are winning by showing practically that those in power are continually curbing our freedoms. With such policies, tech companies are just joining forces with "democratic oppressive governments" in making them more powerful. I do not see a clear and easy solution for these problems.

f4rker 9y ago

Google owns its servers - they can do whatever they want with them. You dont have a "right" to use google, youtube, etc. Also, you dont HAVE to use them. Given this - obviously hate groups do not have a "right" to upload whatever they want to Google services and servers.

blfr 9y ago

I don't believe that there is a problem with terrorism online or that such a thing as online terror exists. Only the most feeble can be terrorised through the screen. The problem is that there are terrorists among us who are willing to bomb, stab, or run people down with a truck. That there are entire communities where this either receives support or is at least tolerated. It has very little to do with technology. They don't do it because they saw an ISIS video on YouTube or a post on Facebook. I doubt this is even a minor factor. Hodgkinson watched The Rachel Maddow Show. On cable.

Jarwain 9y ago
I wouldn't say that it's about individuals being terrorized through the screen. I'd say that it's at-risk individuals who are persuaded to radicalize through the internet. By at-risk, I refer to individuals who may be suffering personal issues in their life, and are susceptible to the messaging used by terrorist recruiters.
- forgottenpass 9y ago
  If there is one thing at-risk people respond positively to, it's ham-fisted social intervention that DGAF about them and openly seeks to control their behavior.

WatchDog 9y ago

This is clearly in response to the call from several world leaders for more participation from google et al. in combating terrorism online. Theresa May, as well as some Australian leaders have made very general statements that the big tech companies are not doing enough to fight terrorism. I expect that these statements are merely a prelude some announcement of legislation, seeking even greater government powers and access to googles data. I imagine law enforcement would rather have detailed identity information on the people consuming the content, rather than simply having the content removed more efficiently. So while removing propaganda and violent videos from youtube is just going to drive the traffic elsewhere, at least googles action may help resist further government encroachment on our online privacy.

wowSuchTerror 9y ago

to fight online terror 1. identify extremist and terrorism-related videos 2. increase the number of independent experts 3. a tougher stance on videos 4. expand its role in counter-radicalisation efforts But I'm not terrified by things that happen online. Least of all videos of events in the past. And, to be honest, I've seen plenty of NSFW videos. Let's not kid ourselves. Terrorism has pretty much nothing to do with videos. Radicalization has more to do with the social realities faced on the ground, day after day, as we live our lives. Alienation and the misery of slums, and hopelessness of monotony without progress, are what lead to terror. The true effects of propaganda are over-stated and over-imagined.

jjoonathan 9y ago
Yes, but that's a less useful story for the people and organizations built on gathering ever more power, so the alternative will be repeated until it sticks. Given the number of people in this thread who take the official narrative at face value, it looks like it's working.

avaer 9y ago

This scares me in ways terrorism never has. I'm not sure terrorism has ever accomplished its goal to effect radical change. But a powerful entity ostensibly protecting us from a group perceived as a common evil that's not worth debating?

bamboozled 9y ago

I truly hope these changes will include the US and Allied forces combat footage. I've seen videos on YouTube contain some of the most shockingly needless violence with complimentary cheering and derogatory language used by British and US soldiers (often directed towards foreign people) one can imagine, disturbing. It seemed like footage aimed at radicalising people to me.

3131s 9y ago
Do you mean to say that the footage should be censored? I think their crimes should be seen be all. A better stop-gap measure against the radicalization of American terrorists would be to prevent the DoD from recruiting at high schools, at sporting events, in movies and video games, etc.

dcow 9y ago

This is has become another one of those mysteriously-disappeared-from-the-front-page-of-hacker-news posts.

bhami 9y ago

Let's see, this is the same Google/ YouTube that marks dozens of PragerU videos as "restricted", despite three Wall Street Journal editorials protesting that. The same YouTube that has been demonetizing Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones, and other conservatives. In summary, Google has long proven that they have an unapologetic Leftist agenda.

patrickg_zill 9y ago
Remember that in the last election, virtually zero newspaper, magazine (eg The Atlantic) or any other media outlet endorsed Trump in their editorials. And yet these same organizations assure us they will have clearly defined and wholly impartial standards. Uh huh...

bhami 9y ago

nippples 9y ago

> We have also recently committed to working with industry colleagues—including Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter All of those platforms that are notoriously bad at curbing terrorism and great at promoting the most asinine "I can't believe it's not a troll" social justice concerns. Also, not to mention present day Twitter gets a lot of money from wahabbi-funding Saudi Royals: https://qz.com/131532/meet-the-people-and-funds-that-stand-to-profit-from-twitters-ipo/ https://qz.com/131532/meet-the-people-and-funds-that-stand-t...

deleted 9y ago
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pfortuny 9y ago

So instead of the rule of law we have reached the rule of google. Funny development.

wiz21c 9y ago

From YouTube Hero's Program rules : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7159025 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7159025 >>> Participation in the Program by some participants may be restricted (e.g., no or limited perks), including persons who are government officials, including (i) government employees; (ii) candidates for public office; and (iii) employees of government-owned or government-controlled companies, public international organizations, and political parties. that tells much...

creepydata 9y ago
What does it tell?
- wiz21c 9y ago
  It tells that Google is completely opaque on who gets hired and who doesn't (because the sentence is fuzzy). Google is a private company so it seems logical that they have the last word. However, given the size of Google, I'd be happy if the ethical argument about what is an acceptable video would come at the table too. The fact that Google tries to do something about terrorism is absolutely not equal to the fact that it is efficient at that. For us to know that, we must be able to review their results at that (and how do we even define a result in this area :-/ ) as well as their methods (which requires transparency).

a_imho 9y ago

I'm rather skeptical when terrorism (or Lovejoy) is invoked as a reason for more censorship, hope it turns out well this time. we are working with Jigsaw to implement the “Redirect Method” more broadly across Europe. This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential Isis recruits, It is not really clear why is Europe specifically targeted.

klez 9y ago
> It is not really clear why is Europe specifically targeted If you mean "targeted by attacks" I'm not sure why. If you mean "targeted with this method" is because most of these kinds of acts in the West happened in Europe and not somewhere else. Also, IIRC, most of the attacks came from people born here, not immigrants, so it wouldn't make much sense to target wannabe attackers directly in the Middle East.

amelius 9y ago

Will every internet company have to reinvent their own counter-terrorism tools? That doesn't sound very efficient to me. Also, isn't this a task for governments?

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I'm more worried about government getting involved than some loss of efficiency.

TausAmmer 9y ago

Лайки Крутятся, мемасы мутятся.

tdkl 9y ago

Professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson explains the phenomenon of PC, that's widespread today and brought this new means of censorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PI5JGTA1WI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PI5JGTA1WI

deleted 9y ago

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TheRealDunkirk 9y ago

I should start an over/under pool on how soon we'll start seeing the "OMG they banned my channel for THIS, and there's no person within 1000 miles I can find to fix it" type of posts.

sashok_bg 9y ago

more and more regulation = less freedom Simple equation, no way out of it

sashok_bg 9y ago

more and more regulation = less freedom Simple equation, no way out of it

camus2 9y ago

That's an excellent news. I was absolutely disgusted by the amount of pro Daesh content on Youtube 2/3 years ago where you could see their videos that became famous for their high production value. Youtube absolutely contributed the spread of fundamentalism no question. And there are still a bunch of hateful Nasheed easily accessible but Youtube is still not removing them because "it's music" ? outrageous ...