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Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

123 points by sahin-boydas 8y ago

x38iq84n 8y ago
The shooting in Christchurch is a tragedy that should not have happened. That said, this massive wave of censorship across MSM, NZ ISPs, regardless of the motivation, is very disturbing. It will be inevitably used to suppress citizens' freedoms, it will cause more tension in society that will escalate into more tragical incidents. Also, the video may serve someone to study modus operandi of such an attacker to increase their chances of survival in a similar situation. Either way, the censorship and attempts at rewriting history (removal of Spacey, Jackson), again banning inconvenient books are extremely dangerous and slippery slope to get on.
- candiodari 8y ago
  But if (most) people don't know, "nothing goes wrong", doesn't it ? And surely that means we can ignore the problems. If ever there was an apt description of youth services, or the justice system. And yes, I get it, in both cases, it merely describes the terrible crimes and abuses happening in 99% of those systems. For the remaining 1% of cases, they are necessary.
- telesilla 8y ago
  Can I ask you: how can I, who does not at all want to see any graphic images, avoid these without censorship? It's not fair to allow these things in the public field where we might see disturbing things without wanting to. Videos and images must be tagged, and therefore given a rating so that I can self-censor.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    It's called choosing your friends and information sources. Cause I haven't seen the video once. I haven't been offered to neither. You have to take some responsibility at some point. Always asking the rest of the world to do good by you is only going to lead you so far.
  - pests 8y ago
    I usually turn off entertainment that is dis-pleasuring me. Do you need everything to be labeled and rated by someone else before consumption?
    - wldlyinaccurate 8y ago
      Yes. This is the entire purpose of film rating systems like the well-known MPAA system. People want to be informed about the content of a film before watching it so that they can decide whether it is appropriate for them (or their children, or their friends suffering from PTS) to watch.
  - manfredo 8y ago
    > Can I ask you: how can I, who does not at all want to see any graphic images, avoid these without censorship? Don't search for and click on videos of the shooting? Sure, it won't stop someone specifically trying to get you to watch the video. But censorship doesn't change that. No amount of censorship can keep people from, say, adding some noise to the video to circumvent any filters and sending it to you.
    - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
      There are services that don't moderate (censor) content. For the most part they are shit-holes and most people stay away from them. If you want to make it so that no site owner can moderate their own site, you are going to have a huge uphill battle. And I can't imagine why you would want that kind of world.
  - x38iq84n 8y ago
    You can choose to skip posts, block users from view, close the tab with that disturbing website, not to view the "breaking news mosque shooting" video. Do you seriously ask for a censorship of media, social or other, just so you do not get disturbed by a video that you chose to watch?
    - thousandautumns 8y ago
      It isn't censorship. Free speech does not equate to Twitter/Facebook/Google having an obligation to host any/all content someone might post on their site.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    I would happily support tagging of such things to allow people to choose to not see things. It's choosing to not allow other people to see things that's problematic.
  - rndgermandude 8y ago
    Frankly, not my problem. That's your problem. Today it is you who says we gotta censor what you find offensive, tomorrow President Orange-Nimrod will censor all of CNN because it's OK now to censor things that somebody/anybody finds offensive, and in a few decades time President Jenna Bush Hager will censor all depictions of an Earth that isn't flat because those are offensive to the good god-fearing citizens who are true to the word of the Bible.
    - thousandautumns 8y ago
      The flipside being that you are making the argument that private entities should not be allowed to choose what content they host. You worry about flat earthers censoring non-flat earth depictions, but a much more realistic threat is flat-earthers forcing their insanity to have a larger share of voice than they should by strong arming platforms and people that know better into giving them a microphone, because were they not to do so, they would be accused of "censorship". No one is saying the NZ video should be purged from the internet. But it is foolish to equate censorship with private social media companies scrubbing it from their sites. You are welcome to search out other venues that host the video, or host it yourself. Your rights are not being infringed upon if Twitter and Facebook won't.
      - rndgermandude 8y ago
        Well, I didn't make this argument specifically here, and my answer would be: it depends. Common carriers, like Telstra (largest mobile Australian ISP), started blocking websites hosting the video. That's not OK for an ISP to do. Same as it isn't OK for e.g. a utility company to cut off power to a "nazi" (whatever that means these days) or to Bernie Sanders supporters because the utility CEO doesn't like "socialism". Private entities actually hosting the content would be a different matter, and the decision should be up to the private entity. Unless such a private entity is a de facto common carrier in itself. I'd argue Facebook, twitter, reddit, google e.g. are de facto common carriers running general purpose platforms - given their size, influence and reach - even according to their own PR. They are analogous to a utility company, and saying "you can host the content on your own server" is like saying "you can just run your own generator for your electricity needs/use solar panels and battery" or like saying "you can always create your own telephone network if you don't like what the companies are doing; all it takes is 2 old cans and a string". In my opinion common carrier and de facto common carriers should not be allowed to outright censor lawful content. Videos of newsworthy terrorist attacks, no matter if it is made by a terrorist (e.g. this one) or just an innocent bystander (e.g. 9/11, Las Vegas), are not illegal and should not be allowed to be censored by such de facto common carriers/de facto utility companies.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - krageon 8y ago
    Tailor your environment to suit your sensibilities. Nobody is prying open your eyes and showing this to you and it is and has been perfectly possible to not see this video anywhere.
- m0zg 8y ago
  > massive wave of censorship across MSM, NZ ISPs, > regardless of the motivation, is very disturbing Never waste a good crisis. Someone in the government was salivating over this even before the bodies reached room temperature. Happens every time. Does jack squat to prevent anything at all, but the power balance always shifts unidirectionally, towards the ruling class.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  It is extremely telling to me that of all the comments here, most of them I've seen express concern not with the fact that 50 people were murdered by white supremacists (a number that seems to be rising year over year) but rather attempting to divert the topic into one about censorship and free speech. I have seen zero proposed solutions or ways of combating the rise of white supremacists because so far, the market place of ideas has not been successful. You're saying that there's a massive wave of censorship, yet white supremacist materials, videos and activity has never been more open and easy to access.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    I had the same thought and it makes me sad. No suggestions, or ways to help. This is meant to be a meeting place of intelligent, creative, resourceful people. Instead of just saying "it's too difficult, lets do nothing" why not think of answers.
  - x38iq84n 8y ago
    > I have seen zero proposed solutions or ways of combating the rise of white supremacists No, you have only missed them. The solution is exactly free speech and more of it. These days people are often suppressed when they voice a concern that touches certain topics, i.e. immigration, religion and particularly Islam, anti-semitism, rapid changes of demographics and many more. Media oppression and flat out censorship do not make a stop to the opinions they try to suppress. They just drive them away, to hidden forums, to non-mainstream platforms, to dark web. So instead of shunning white supremacists from media - tolerate them on and challenge them with arguments, explain how they are wrong, educate them, ridicule their nonsense; but never censor them.
    - fzeroracer 8y ago
      No, they're not often 'suppressed'. Again, nowadays it is far easier to access white supremacist material than possibly any other time. It's one search, one twitter account, one youtube recommendation away. These are people not operating on hidden forums at all, they're out in the open espousing these views. I keep seeing people repeat this view, but I see none of it. You're attempting to divert away from my point in that you don't propose an actual solution at all. You propose nothing except maintaining the status quo. Arguing against a white supremacist gives legitimacy to their views, because they don't argue on the same level as you or I. They knowingly make illogical arguments that you simply cannot refute and they don't care even if you try.
- tim333 8y ago
  It's not totally censored and you don't go to jail for sharing it or anything like that - it's just making it harder to get and a bit more obscure which I don't find that worrying. It took me 5 mins to find it for someone else - I didn't actually want to watch it personally.
  - ioquatix 8y ago
    Someone is apparently in NZ court for sharing the video as it is now deemed objectionable material. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1903/S00171/sharing-shooting-video-likely-illegal.htm http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1903/S00171/sharing-shootin... I can personally see the logic of this. This is not a video from an innocent bystander, but a video from a murderer designed to perpetuate hate. I'm generally anti-censorship, but I think this is a form of hate speech and society as a whole does not benefit from its dissemination.
- white-flame 8y ago
  The censorship is also sprouting up conspiracy theories, claiming that they're taking down the video because there's something to hide in it compared to the official reporting. This video is historical fact, the most direct record of an important terrible event that had wide-ranging effect and became global news. Its accessibility helps squash rumors about what people think happened or didn't happen. Combined with the manifesto, it also shows why it happened.
huffmsa 8y ago
The video of the 757s hitting the WTC isn't purged from the internet, why should this video be? The world is dark and full of terrors (but getting better every day), and sticking our heads in the sand doesn't change that.
- judge2020 8y ago
  This. I do agree that there should be a warning about the content, but trying to block it from viewing at all is showing a dark pattern of Google, Facebook, etc. and Governments being able to dictate what your eyes can and can't see.
  - x38iq84n 8y ago
    NZ goes even further, threatening 10 years prison for a “possession of a video”. Kiwis have gone bananas. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-16/nz-threatens-10-years-prison-possessing-mosque-shooting-video-web-hosts-warned https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-16/nz-threatens-10-ye...
    - huffmsa 8y ago
      It still strikes me that it can be illegal to be in possession of a device which has a certain combination of positive and negative polarities embedded in it. Shakespeare's typing monkeys come to mind.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - gbear605 8y ago
        In the end, everything is just subatomic particles arranged in different ways, so why should anything be illegal? If you’re going to reduce one idea to its base elements, you should at least be consistent. On the other hand, perhaps if we think about everything at a more reasonable level, we can see why some digital things should be illegal, just as some physical things should be illegal.
warning26 8y ago
I know people on here will disagree with this, but I think many of these events indicate that online censorship is needed. I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.
- refurb 8y ago
  It's amazing how quickly people will give up fundamental rights in the name of safety.
  - eg5fv4 8y ago
    Thanks to this particular incident I've clearly seen the hypocrisy of many people regarding these matters.
    - marcinzm 8y ago
      Hypocrisy? Why do you assume that censorship will be used to block far-right material rather than leftist material? The right is gaining more and more political power and historically (at least in the US) is the side most willing to use censorship for it's own benefit.
      - eg5fv4 8y ago
        I've read many people for too long opposing censorship, because it was always used by those in power for many things, from oppressing the political will of people to protecting copyright. Think of China, Russia on one side and the West on the other. But now that some political power that we don't like is emerging, well, a lil censorship never hurt anyone huh?
        amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        I oppose censorship when the government does it. However, I fully expect to be able to boot any content that displeases me off my own website. Which is what Facebook is trying to do. This very discussion forum is moderated, and very well as far as I can see. Do you think it would somehow be better if the mods weren't here?
40acres 8y ago
We have yet to have a real discussion about what we expect the largest platforms to do about content like this. The nature of online content is that once it's created it can be copied quite easily, if Facebook was able to block 80% of this content that should be commended. AI is not at the point where we can expect 100% of this content to be removed and if it was there would likely be some collateral damage that others would complain about. At it's current state we need a lot more humans screening this type of content and who are we to subject other people to that type of mental disturbance?
- ben_w 8y ago
  20% not being caught is surprisingly high to me. I would have assumed the majority of the upload attempts would be byte-for-byte identical, and that even if there were a dozen minor variations of the same content, they would be able to deal with >95% automatically.
  - fizx 8y ago
    1.5 million videos uploaded implies the involvement of at least persistent script-kiddies, if not possibly state-level actors getting involved for propaganda. This seems likely to be an arms race.
    - ben_w 8y ago
      1.5 million uploads represents 0.1% of Facebook users making a single attempt each. While I expect some script efforts in general, I feel it’s an unnecessary complication in this case.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    Are those numbers from data or are they just your gut feeling?
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    80% of the videos probably did match a simple sha1 lookup and were trivially removed. Now what?
Simulacra 8y ago
People around the office were watching it. Shockingly easy to find.
- tibbydudeza 8y ago
  You have ask what sort of people would watch this ???.
  - mrkstu 8y ago
    The same people who gathered around TVs on 9/11 after the first strike and then saw the 2nd strike live? So most of the country?
    - dghughes 8y ago
      On the morning of September 11, 2001 nobody knew there would be a second attack on the other tower. I distinctly remember everyone including myself thinking about the B52 that accidentally ran into the Empire State building. We were all at work so it wasn't like we were watching TV. You're assuming at the time that everyone knew it was a terrorist attack, which is false. Nobody knew that until well after the second plane hit. And even after the third plane crashed into the ground. The only reason anyone watched TV was because it was a major event with a dramatic incident. Most of the people at the time in my town didn't turn on the TV I had to ask several times at a bar to have the TV turned on. Even then people had no idea what was going on.
      - mrkstu 8y ago
        No assumptions. We were gathered around the TV in the conference room after the first one hit and part of the conversation was whether it was terrorism, since it was pretty obvious you don't just happen to ram into the side of the tallest building in the country. But your comment is a non-sequitur regardless- even once we all knew it was a terrorist attack it was replayed endlessly on TV for months, including the people throwing themselves off the building. I haven't watched any of the footage of the New Zealand attack, but to somehow say it is exceptional to watch the footage is historically speaking, incorrect.
Waterluvian 8y ago
It's absolutely awful. But im kind of glad it's impossible to fully filter. That's an important feature of the web. It's just going to really really suck sometimes.
OmarIsmail 8y ago
All the "free speech" advocates here, do you still stand by that when it comes to child porn, or specific threats against individuals? If you do, and publicly, well... at least you're consistent. If you don't then you're already ok with some kind of censorship, and the argument is just about where the line is drawn. I really don't like when people talk about "censorship in general" when they really mean "This is below my line for what should be censored". If you want to make the case for no censorship at all then you need to use the most extreme examples of what will be shared and consumed because that's what will happen.
- marcinzm 8y ago
  Sure. Except people also confuse "this is where the line is" with "this is the material that will be censored." The line is merely how much material those controlling censorship are able to censor. And nowadays a lot of very vocal right wing politicians are getting elected across the world. Allowing censorship merely moves that line and what ultimately gets censored may be very different from what you wanted or expected to get censored.
- sasasassy 8y ago
  Yes. You should not go to jail just for having some specific sequences of ones and zeroes on a magnetic device on your home. You should go to jail if you do actual crimes, you know, with real victims. Not imaginary victims that don't know when you see a video in the first place.
  - tantalor 8y ago
    IANAL but knowingly transmitting CP is arguably "aiding & abetting" (i.e., encouraging) the "actual crimes" after the fact.
    - sasasassy 8y ago
      Yes but it shouldn't. Sharing some bad videos is considered bad, like child porn or NZ shooting. Sharing others is fine, like beheadings, other terror attacks, war footage. Making violent videogames is fine (see most FPS), but if they are a little more out of the norm they're bad (see a game called "Postal"). I'd like to know who decides on these arbitrary things.
jbverschoor 8y ago
And how is world supposed to be eaten by AI?
dperfect 8y ago
For more context into Facebook's decision-making process when it comes to censorship, you might find this episode of Radiolab insightful (it was for me): https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/post-no-evil https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/post-no-evil From what I recall: Facebook's dilemmas over how/what to censor have existed since very early in the company's history. Internally, FB developed a policy document - separate from the public one we see - which would be applied by both human and AI enforcers. The employment of those human enforcers could be considered unethical in itself (at least without providing adequate therapy). Over time, the secret policy document has grown substantially to account for a lot of edge cases. While terrorist/graphic violence is normally censored, there are provisions for allowing content that would otherwise not be seen/known if not shared on FB (e.g., content that governments seek to cover up). Still, there is considerable internal disagreement among executives at FB when it comes to handling edge cases. The fact that this secret document (and the processes that define and apply it) has so much power in shaping public perception, politics, etc. with so little transparency is perhaps the most disturbing part of this.
jayess 8y ago
One can find thousands of copies of the video of President Kennedy's head exploding from the bullet of an assassin. All over youtube. What's the difference?
- dewey 8y ago
  It was not created by the assassin and spread as propaganda.
  - 50656E6973 8y ago
    "Know your enemy"
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Not on 22 November 1963, one couldn't. The Zapruder film itself only began to circulate publicly, in a very limited fashion, in 1969, nearly six years later. The first broadcast was in 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
I've done some work in the AI content moderation space and I have come to suspect that while computer vision is advanced enough to probably detect all of this, the neural nets are so big and deep that it costs over 10x what anyone is willing to pay to run, on such a large scale. It's like looking for needles in a haystack, and it is expensive. There is a cost-quality tradeoff with these neural nets as well, but if you go cheap, then your accuracy isn't useful either. I don't know such a sweet spot exists today where it is both cost effective and useful.
- mr_toad 8y ago
  I wouldn’t have thought that scoring video with a pre-trained model would be much more computationally expensive than other routine operations like transcoding and compression.
  - etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
    But it is indeed quite a bit more computationally intendive, especially for the highest quality models.
jimjimjim 8y ago
I am almost as saddened by some of the responses here as I was after hearing about the shooting. Have you all become so gradually desensitized to violence that absolutely nothing is beyond acceptable? Are YOU, personally, YOU, happy with how things are in the world?
- judge2020 8y ago
  I recommend re-reading the comments here. Nobody is saying that what happened is acceptable, every comment here has its own reasoning for why they viewed it or why they don't think it should be censored.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    Wait, have you read the responses HERE? most of them are 'how dare they try and censor us'.
    - tomhoward 8y ago
      Please try and remember that the entire objective of this attack is to set everyone at war with each other. Let's not fall into that trap here. The matter of whether or not censorship increases or reduces the propensity for attacks like this to happen is a complex and vexed one. If you see anyone discussing the topic in bad faith, you should flag the comment and report them to the mods, and they will take the appropriate action.
- charlesism 8y ago
  That anyone feels the public has some "right" to watch other people die turns my stomach. I didn't grow up on 4chan, or watching far-right propaganda on Youtube, so I still see sadism as a character flaw, not a virtue.
  - jimjimjim 8y ago
    thank you.
Animats 8y ago
The US has shootings this big most years now. Las Vegas festival shooting, 2017, 59 dead. Sutherland Springs church shooting, 2017, 27 dead. Orlando nightclub shooting, 2016, 50 dead. Yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. But for a high body count, you need a good assault rifle like the AR-15 family, the choice of most mass shooters. Streaming your mass shooting is fully supported by off the shelf products. GoPro sells an official mount for mounting a camera on a rifle.[1] Video of deer hunting with this.[2] Instructions from GoPro on how to set up your camera for live streaming.[3] It's so easy now that anyone can do it. And it's all legal in most US states, right up until you pull the trigger. America, Land of Guns! [1] https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-Sportsman-Mount-Official/dp/B00F19Q4LY https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-Sportsman-Mount-Official/dp/B00... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOTO5ydGbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOTO5ydGbE [3] https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/getting-started-with-live-streaming https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/getting-started-with-l...
- HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
  I don't know how you managed to turn a story about a gun massacre in New Zealand - a country with strict gun control laws - into a critique of Americas loose gun control laws.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- itchyjunk 8y ago
  I don't follow. Ban certain guns and GoPro? What happens when someone crazy starts stabbing people with hunting knife? Ban knives? Ban live streaming? I don't follow how you turned a shooting in NZ into a `America, Land of Guns` rant.
  - dewey 8y ago
    Stabbing people with a hunting knife is not as scalable as mowing down people with an AR.
  - 8y ago
nullc 8y ago
I wish so many platforms didn't shove content in your face that you don't want... there would be far less call to aggressively censor this material if so many people weren't using platforms which were designed to cram things down the user's throat. People should be able to live their lives largely free of unwanted exposure to this stuff. We shouldn't have to outlaw people who want to investigate it in order to achieve that.
- sasasassy 8y ago
  It's your own Facebook feed.
  - nullc 8y ago
    I'm having a little bit of a hard time figuring out the meaning of your comment.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Not necessarily: https://mastodon.social/@dartigen/101754389608830780 https://mastodon.social/@dartigen/101754389608830780
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos Fixed title: Facebook blocked 80% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos, or 1.5 million of them.
golemiprague 8y ago
If anything, I think censorship is what causing the rage of those people. A meaningful discussion about immigration is frowned upon and anybody who object mass immigration or immigration from certain places is immediately branded and silenced. What we need is more free speech in NZ and AU, not less, in order to prevent the next shooting.
internet_user 8y ago
It is a regrettable situation that is playing into attacker's hand. Now a single tiny state gets to censorship worldwide? How is that not an inflammatory action?
zed88 8y ago
I think censorship is not going to fix the issue, people have the right to see and face evil if they so wish to and have a strong heart. I am from NZ and a muslim and have watched the video myself an hour after the incident, I know people personally affected by this and I think we all need to come together as human beings and understand that there are some evil ideas and people everywhere around the world. And that's the challenge we face that wouldn't go away because of censorship and putting our heads in the sand.
- Forge36 8y ago
  I have not seen the video. I can't say I want to either. I can see how censorship would discourage others from repeating the atrocity. Someone else was talking about how scary it was the events that took place occurred so calmly, and with such ease. I don't believe most people can face watching that without negative consequences for their own mental health.
- TheTruth1234 8y ago
  >> I think censorship is not going to fix the issue, people have the right to see and face evil if they so wish to and have a strong heart. It's the inadvertent exposure that's more of a problem. The access is just so easy. If you were browsing at the time it was happening, you almost couldn't not watch the video because it was so prevelant. I'm imagining a 16 year old coming across it, and wondering how they process it. I made a conscious choice/effort not to watch it and 99% succeeded. But there are moments I couldn't miss because they were everywhere. By the way, that's not burying my head in the sand. It's more about respecting the dead and not needing to see it to understand the darkness in some people.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    The fact that browsers, websites, and apps autoplay video, often with sound, doesn't help. I've posted a ... friendly notice to Google about this.
  - huffmsa 8y ago
    You think you understand, but until you really see something or someone go from living and breath to abruptly dead, you don't. As for the 16 year old, it wasn't long ago that by 16 you'd have seen a few of your siblings and friends succumbed to illness or accident. Death used to be part of life and we dealt with it.
wankerrific 8y ago
Facebook and YouTube would sure as f--- fix this problem if, you know, it was the law that they hold liability for any and/all content that was hosted on their platform that they were, you know, profiting off of by displaying ads next to said content. But that would require regulations which is bad for job creations or something.
aussieguy1234 8y ago
I'm not sure how Facebook stores media assets. But it would be stupid to duplicate a video for a shared post more than once. A one to many relationship (one video used by multiple shared posts) is more likely. If that's the case it should be easy to delete the original video, then all of the shares loose their content.
- huffmsa 8y ago
  But trolls are smart and don't share, they reupload. Which is still easy to catch if you hash the video. But doing something like mirroring or otherwise making a small tweak to the video breaks that hash lookup. Hence 20% making it through.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
matz1 8y ago
This is why we need desentralized, hard to censor platforms. Or at very least a competing platform that has different stand on the issue.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Other platforms that don't moderate already exist. Unfortunately, because they don't moderate, they are so awful most people won't use them.
skybrian 8y ago
I'm thankful Hacker News doesn't have pictures or video, and it's too bad more online forums don't do the same. More places should stick to plain text. You can link if you need to.
alexcnwy 8y ago
I build a lot of computer vision systems and did my MSc on classifying what’s happening in video and I am VERY skeptical that it’s possible to prevent this from happening (without having a person watch every video). You can edit a video to make it appear as safe content and it’s a cat and mouse game because you need humans to annotate those variations before a ML system can detect them (an unsupervised model will likely lead to loads of false positives). I think the solution is better control over what we see and who we trust enough to allow them to broadcast into our brains.
Const-me 8y ago
I wonder if I’ll try to upload a music video by Britney Spears, what will be the false negative rate of FB’s censorship algorithms? Will it be the same 20%?
MickRapp 8y ago
The body cam video clip showed the spent casings disappearing into thin air. It was a doctored video with special effects added. I saw it and reposted it on both my Twitter and Facebook page. This video covers the discrepancies. Two men in baseball caps were also shooting. https://youtu.be/dOCwYd4ogFY https://youtu.be/dOCwYd4ogFY

123 points by sahin-boydas 8y ago

The shooting in Christchurch is a tragedy that should not have happened. That said, this massive wave of censorship across MSM, NZ ISPs, regardless of the motivation, is very disturbing. It will be inevitably used to suppress citizens' freedoms, it will cause more tension in society that will escalate into more tragical incidents. Also, the video may serve someone to study modus operandi of such an attacker to increase their chances of survival in a similar situation. Either way, the censorship and attempts at rewriting history (removal of Spacey, Jackson), again banning inconvenient books are extremely dangerous and slippery slope to get on.

candiodari 8y ago
But if (most) people don't know, "nothing goes wrong", doesn't it ? And surely that means we can ignore the problems. If ever there was an apt description of youth services, or the justice system. And yes, I get it, in both cases, it merely describes the terrible crimes and abuses happening in 99% of those systems. For the remaining 1% of cases, they are necessary.
telesilla 8y ago
Can I ask you: how can I, who does not at all want to see any graphic images, avoid these without censorship? It's not fair to allow these things in the public field where we might see disturbing things without wanting to. Videos and images must be tagged, and therefore given a rating so that I can self-censor.
- sametmax 8y ago
  It's called choosing your friends and information sources. Cause I haven't seen the video once. I haven't been offered to neither. You have to take some responsibility at some point. Always asking the rest of the world to do good by you is only going to lead you so far.
- pests 8y ago
  I usually turn off entertainment that is dis-pleasuring me. Do you need everything to be labeled and rated by someone else before consumption?
  - wldlyinaccurate 8y ago
    Yes. This is the entire purpose of film rating systems like the well-known MPAA system. People want to be informed about the content of a film before watching it so that they can decide whether it is appropriate for them (or their children, or their friends suffering from PTS) to watch.
- manfredo 8y ago
  > Can I ask you: how can I, who does not at all want to see any graphic images, avoid these without censorship? Don't search for and click on videos of the shooting? Sure, it won't stop someone specifically trying to get you to watch the video. But censorship doesn't change that. No amount of censorship can keep people from, say, adding some noise to the video to circumvent any filters and sending it to you.
  - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
    There are services that don't moderate (censor) content. For the most part they are shit-holes and most people stay away from them. If you want to make it so that no site owner can moderate their own site, you are going to have a huge uphill battle. And I can't imagine why you would want that kind of world.
- x38iq84n 8y ago
  You can choose to skip posts, block users from view, close the tab with that disturbing website, not to view the "breaking news mosque shooting" video. Do you seriously ask for a censorship of media, social or other, just so you do not get disturbed by a video that you chose to watch?
  - thousandautumns 8y ago
    It isn't censorship. Free speech does not equate to Twitter/Facebook/Google having an obligation to host any/all content someone might post on their site.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  I would happily support tagging of such things to allow people to choose to not see things. It's choosing to not allow other people to see things that's problematic.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  Frankly, not my problem. That's your problem. Today it is you who says we gotta censor what you find offensive, tomorrow President Orange-Nimrod will censor all of CNN because it's OK now to censor things that somebody/anybody finds offensive, and in a few decades time President Jenna Bush Hager will censor all depictions of an Earth that isn't flat because those are offensive to the good god-fearing citizens who are true to the word of the Bible.
  - thousandautumns 8y ago
    The flipside being that you are making the argument that private entities should not be allowed to choose what content they host. You worry about flat earthers censoring non-flat earth depictions, but a much more realistic threat is flat-earthers forcing their insanity to have a larger share of voice than they should by strong arming platforms and people that know better into giving them a microphone, because were they not to do so, they would be accused of "censorship". No one is saying the NZ video should be purged from the internet. But it is foolish to equate censorship with private social media companies scrubbing it from their sites. You are welcome to search out other venues that host the video, or host it yourself. Your rights are not being infringed upon if Twitter and Facebook won't.
    - rndgermandude 8y ago
      Well, I didn't make this argument specifically here, and my answer would be: it depends. Common carriers, like Telstra (largest mobile Australian ISP), started blocking websites hosting the video. That's not OK for an ISP to do. Same as it isn't OK for e.g. a utility company to cut off power to a "nazi" (whatever that means these days) or to Bernie Sanders supporters because the utility CEO doesn't like "socialism". Private entities actually hosting the content would be a different matter, and the decision should be up to the private entity. Unless such a private entity is a de facto common carrier in itself. I'd argue Facebook, twitter, reddit, google e.g. are de facto common carriers running general purpose platforms - given their size, influence and reach - even according to their own PR. They are analogous to a utility company, and saying "you can host the content on your own server" is like saying "you can just run your own generator for your electricity needs/use solar panels and battery" or like saying "you can always create your own telephone network if you don't like what the companies are doing; all it takes is 2 old cans and a string". In my opinion common carrier and de facto common carriers should not be allowed to outright censor lawful content. Videos of newsworthy terrorist attacks, no matter if it is made by a terrorist (e.g. this one) or just an innocent bystander (e.g. 9/11, Las Vegas), are not illegal and should not be allowed to be censored by such de facto common carriers/de facto utility companies.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- krageon 8y ago
  Tailor your environment to suit your sensibilities. Nobody is prying open your eyes and showing this to you and it is and has been perfectly possible to not see this video anywhere.
m0zg 8y ago
> massive wave of censorship across MSM, NZ ISPs, > regardless of the motivation, is very disturbing Never waste a good crisis. Someone in the government was salivating over this even before the bodies reached room temperature. Happens every time. Does jack squat to prevent anything at all, but the power balance always shifts unidirectionally, towards the ruling class.
fzeroracer 8y ago
It is extremely telling to me that of all the comments here, most of them I've seen express concern not with the fact that 50 people were murdered by white supremacists (a number that seems to be rising year over year) but rather attempting to divert the topic into one about censorship and free speech. I have seen zero proposed solutions or ways of combating the rise of white supremacists because so far, the market place of ideas has not been successful. You're saying that there's a massive wave of censorship, yet white supremacist materials, videos and activity has never been more open and easy to access.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  I had the same thought and it makes me sad. No suggestions, or ways to help. This is meant to be a meeting place of intelligent, creative, resourceful people. Instead of just saying "it's too difficult, lets do nothing" why not think of answers.
- x38iq84n 8y ago
  > I have seen zero proposed solutions or ways of combating the rise of white supremacists No, you have only missed them. The solution is exactly free speech and more of it. These days people are often suppressed when they voice a concern that touches certain topics, i.e. immigration, religion and particularly Islam, anti-semitism, rapid changes of demographics and many more. Media oppression and flat out censorship do not make a stop to the opinions they try to suppress. They just drive them away, to hidden forums, to non-mainstream platforms, to dark web. So instead of shunning white supremacists from media - tolerate them on and challenge them with arguments, explain how they are wrong, educate them, ridicule their nonsense; but never censor them.
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    No, they're not often 'suppressed'. Again, nowadays it is far easier to access white supremacist material than possibly any other time. It's one search, one twitter account, one youtube recommendation away. These are people not operating on hidden forums at all, they're out in the open espousing these views. I keep seeing people repeat this view, but I see none of it. You're attempting to divert away from my point in that you don't propose an actual solution at all. You propose nothing except maintaining the status quo. Arguing against a white supremacist gives legitimacy to their views, because they don't argue on the same level as you or I. They knowingly make illogical arguments that you simply cannot refute and they don't care even if you try.
tim333 8y ago
It's not totally censored and you don't go to jail for sharing it or anything like that - it's just making it harder to get and a bit more obscure which I don't find that worrying. It took me 5 mins to find it for someone else - I didn't actually want to watch it personally.
- ioquatix 8y ago
  Someone is apparently in NZ court for sharing the video as it is now deemed objectionable material. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1903/S00171/sharing-shooting-video-likely-illegal.htm http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1903/S00171/sharing-shootin... I can personally see the logic of this. This is not a video from an innocent bystander, but a video from a murderer designed to perpetuate hate. I'm generally anti-censorship, but I think this is a form of hate speech and society as a whole does not benefit from its dissemination.
white-flame 8y ago
The censorship is also sprouting up conspiracy theories, claiming that they're taking down the video because there's something to hide in it compared to the official reporting. This video is historical fact, the most direct record of an important terrible event that had wide-ranging effect and became global news. Its accessibility helps squash rumors about what people think happened or didn't happen. Combined with the manifesto, it also shows why it happened.

huffmsa 8y ago

The video of the 757s hitting the WTC isn't purged from the internet, why should this video be? The world is dark and full of terrors (but getting better every day), and sticking our heads in the sand doesn't change that.

judge2020 8y ago
This. I do agree that there should be a warning about the content, but trying to block it from viewing at all is showing a dark pattern of Google, Facebook, etc. and Governments being able to dictate what your eyes can and can't see.
- x38iq84n 8y ago
  NZ goes even further, threatening 10 years prison for a “possession of a video”. Kiwis have gone bananas. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-16/nz-threatens-10-years-prison-possessing-mosque-shooting-video-web-hosts-warned https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-16/nz-threatens-10-ye...
  - huffmsa 8y ago
    It still strikes me that it can be illegal to be in possession of a device which has a certain combination of positive and negative polarities embedded in it. Shakespeare's typing monkeys come to mind.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - gbear605 8y ago
      In the end, everything is just subatomic particles arranged in different ways, so why should anything be illegal? If you’re going to reduce one idea to its base elements, you should at least be consistent. On the other hand, perhaps if we think about everything at a more reasonable level, we can see why some digital things should be illegal, just as some physical things should be illegal.

warning26 8y ago

I know people on here will disagree with this, but I think many of these events indicate that online censorship is needed. I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.

refurb 8y ago
It's amazing how quickly people will give up fundamental rights in the name of safety.
- eg5fv4 8y ago
  Thanks to this particular incident I've clearly seen the hypocrisy of many people regarding these matters.
  - marcinzm 8y ago
    Hypocrisy? Why do you assume that censorship will be used to block far-right material rather than leftist material? The right is gaining more and more political power and historically (at least in the US) is the side most willing to use censorship for it's own benefit.
    - eg5fv4 8y ago
      I've read many people for too long opposing censorship, because it was always used by those in power for many things, from oppressing the political will of people to protecting copyright. Think of China, Russia on one side and the West on the other. But now that some political power that we don't like is emerging, well, a lil censorship never hurt anyone huh?
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        I oppose censorship when the government does it. However, I fully expect to be able to boot any content that displeases me off my own website. Which is what Facebook is trying to do. This very discussion forum is moderated, and very well as far as I can see. Do you think it would somehow be better if the mods weren't here?

40acres 8y ago

We have yet to have a real discussion about what we expect the largest platforms to do about content like this. The nature of online content is that once it's created it can be copied quite easily, if Facebook was able to block 80% of this content that should be commended. AI is not at the point where we can expect 100% of this content to be removed and if it was there would likely be some collateral damage that others would complain about. At it's current state we need a lot more humans screening this type of content and who are we to subject other people to that type of mental disturbance?

ben_w 8y ago
20% not being caught is surprisingly high to me. I would have assumed the majority of the upload attempts would be byte-for-byte identical, and that even if there were a dozen minor variations of the same content, they would be able to deal with >95% automatically.
- fizx 8y ago
  1.5 million videos uploaded implies the involvement of at least persistent script-kiddies, if not possibly state-level actors getting involved for propaganda. This seems likely to be an arms race.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    1.5 million uploads represents 0.1% of Facebook users making a single attempt each. While I expect some script efforts in general, I feel it’s an unnecessary complication in this case.
- chillacy 8y ago
  Are those numbers from data or are they just your gut feeling?
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  80% of the videos probably did match a simple sha1 lookup and were trivially removed. Now what?

Simulacra 8y ago

People around the office were watching it. Shockingly easy to find.

tibbydudeza 8y ago
You have ask what sort of people would watch this ???.
- mrkstu 8y ago
  The same people who gathered around TVs on 9/11 after the first strike and then saw the 2nd strike live? So most of the country?
  - dghughes 8y ago
    On the morning of September 11, 2001 nobody knew there would be a second attack on the other tower. I distinctly remember everyone including myself thinking about the B52 that accidentally ran into the Empire State building. We were all at work so it wasn't like we were watching TV. You're assuming at the time that everyone knew it was a terrorist attack, which is false. Nobody knew that until well after the second plane hit. And even after the third plane crashed into the ground. The only reason anyone watched TV was because it was a major event with a dramatic incident. Most of the people at the time in my town didn't turn on the TV I had to ask several times at a bar to have the TV turned on. Even then people had no idea what was going on.
    - mrkstu 8y ago
      No assumptions. We were gathered around the TV in the conference room after the first one hit and part of the conversation was whether it was terrorism, since it was pretty obvious you don't just happen to ram into the side of the tallest building in the country. But your comment is a non-sequitur regardless- even once we all knew it was a terrorist attack it was replayed endlessly on TV for months, including the people throwing themselves off the building. I haven't watched any of the footage of the New Zealand attack, but to somehow say it is exceptional to watch the footage is historically speaking, incorrect.

Waterluvian 8y ago

It's absolutely awful. But im kind of glad it's impossible to fully filter. That's an important feature of the web. It's just going to really really suck sometimes.

OmarIsmail 8y ago

All the "free speech" advocates here, do you still stand by that when it comes to child porn, or specific threats against individuals? If you do, and publicly, well... at least you're consistent. If you don't then you're already ok with some kind of censorship, and the argument is just about where the line is drawn. I really don't like when people talk about "censorship in general" when they really mean "This is below my line for what should be censored". If you want to make the case for no censorship at all then you need to use the most extreme examples of what will be shared and consumed because that's what will happen.

marcinzm 8y ago
Sure. Except people also confuse "this is where the line is" with "this is the material that will be censored." The line is merely how much material those controlling censorship are able to censor. And nowadays a lot of very vocal right wing politicians are getting elected across the world. Allowing censorship merely moves that line and what ultimately gets censored may be very different from what you wanted or expected to get censored.
sasasassy 8y ago
Yes. You should not go to jail just for having some specific sequences of ones and zeroes on a magnetic device on your home. You should go to jail if you do actual crimes, you know, with real victims. Not imaginary victims that don't know when you see a video in the first place.
- tantalor 8y ago
  IANAL but knowingly transmitting CP is arguably "aiding & abetting" (i.e., encouraging) the "actual crimes" after the fact.
  - sasasassy 8y ago
    Yes but it shouldn't. Sharing some bad videos is considered bad, like child porn or NZ shooting. Sharing others is fine, like beheadings, other terror attacks, war footage. Making violent videogames is fine (see most FPS), but if they are a little more out of the norm they're bad (see a game called "Postal"). I'd like to know who decides on these arbitrary things.

jbverschoor 8y ago

And how is world supposed to be eaten by AI?

dperfect 8y ago

For more context into Facebook's decision-making process when it comes to censorship, you might find this episode of Radiolab insightful (it was for me): https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/post-no-evil https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/post-no-evil From what I recall: Facebook's dilemmas over how/what to censor have existed since very early in the company's history. Internally, FB developed a policy document - separate from the public one we see - which would be applied by both human and AI enforcers. The employment of those human enforcers could be considered unethical in itself (at least without providing adequate therapy). Over time, the secret policy document has grown substantially to account for a lot of edge cases. While terrorist/graphic violence is normally censored, there are provisions for allowing content that would otherwise not be seen/known if not shared on FB (e.g., content that governments seek to cover up). Still, there is considerable internal disagreement among executives at FB when it comes to handling edge cases. The fact that this secret document (and the processes that define and apply it) has so much power in shaping public perception, politics, etc. with so little transparency is perhaps the most disturbing part of this.

jayess 8y ago

One can find thousands of copies of the video of President Kennedy's head exploding from the bullet of an assassin. All over youtube. What's the difference?

dewey 8y ago
It was not created by the assassin and spread as propaganda.
- 50656E6973 8y ago
  "Know your enemy"
dredmorbius 8y ago
Not on 22 November 1963, one couldn't. The Zapruder film itself only began to circulate publicly, in a very limited fashion, in 1969, nearly six years later. The first broadcast was in 1970. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapruder_film

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago

I've done some work in the AI content moderation space and I have come to suspect that while computer vision is advanced enough to probably detect all of this, the neural nets are so big and deep that it costs over 10x what anyone is willing to pay to run, on such a large scale. It's like looking for needles in a haystack, and it is expensive. There is a cost-quality tradeoff with these neural nets as well, but if you go cheap, then your accuracy isn't useful either. I don't know such a sweet spot exists today where it is both cost effective and useful.

mr_toad 8y ago
I wouldn’t have thought that scoring video with a pre-trained model would be much more computationally expensive than other routine operations like transcoding and compression.
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  But it is indeed quite a bit more computationally intendive, especially for the highest quality models.

jimjimjim 8y ago

I am almost as saddened by some of the responses here as I was after hearing about the shooting. Have you all become so gradually desensitized to violence that absolutely nothing is beyond acceptable? Are YOU, personally, YOU, happy with how things are in the world?

judge2020 8y ago
I recommend re-reading the comments here. Nobody is saying that what happened is acceptable, every comment here has its own reasoning for why they viewed it or why they don't think it should be censored.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  Wait, have you read the responses HERE? most of them are 'how dare they try and censor us'.
  - tomhoward 8y ago
    Please try and remember that the entire objective of this attack is to set everyone at war with each other. Let's not fall into that trap here. The matter of whether or not censorship increases or reduces the propensity for attacks like this to happen is a complex and vexed one. If you see anyone discussing the topic in bad faith, you should flag the comment and report them to the mods, and they will take the appropriate action.
charlesism 8y ago
That anyone feels the public has some "right" to watch other people die turns my stomach. I didn't grow up on 4chan, or watching far-right propaganda on Youtube, so I still see sadism as a character flaw, not a virtue.
- jimjimjim 8y ago
  thank you.

Animats 8y ago

The US has shootings this big most years now. Las Vegas festival shooting, 2017, 59 dead. Sutherland Springs church shooting, 2017, 27 dead. Orlando nightclub shooting, 2016, 50 dead. Yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. But for a high body count, you need a good assault rifle like the AR-15 family, the choice of most mass shooters. Streaming your mass shooting is fully supported by off the shelf products. GoPro sells an official mount for mounting a camera on a rifle.[1] Video of deer hunting with this.[2] Instructions from GoPro on how to set up your camera for live streaming.[3] It's so easy now that anyone can do it. And it's all legal in most US states, right up until you pull the trigger. America, Land of Guns! [1] https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-Sportsman-Mount-Official/dp/B00F19Q4LY https://www.amazon.com/GoPro-Sportsman-Mount-Official/dp/B00... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOTO5ydGbE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAOTO5ydGbE [3] https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/getting-started-with-live-streaming https://gopro.com/help/articles/block/getting-started-with-l...

HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
I don't know how you managed to turn a story about a gun massacre in New Zealand - a country with strict gun control laws - into a critique of Americas loose gun control laws.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
itchyjunk 8y ago
I don't follow. Ban certain guns and GoPro? What happens when someone crazy starts stabbing people with hunting knife? Ban knives? Ban live streaming? I don't follow how you turned a shooting in NZ into a `America, Land of Guns` rant.
- dewey 8y ago
  Stabbing people with a hunting knife is not as scalable as mowing down people with an AR.
- 8y ago

nullc 8y ago

I wish so many platforms didn't shove content in your face that you don't want... there would be far less call to aggressively censor this material if so many people weren't using platforms which were designed to cram things down the user's throat. People should be able to live their lives largely free of unwanted exposure to this stuff. We shouldn't have to outlaw people who want to investigate it in order to achieve that.

sasasassy 8y ago
It's your own Facebook feed.
- nullc 8y ago
  I'm having a little bit of a hard time figuring out the meaning of your comment.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  Not necessarily: https://mastodon.social/@dartigen/101754389608830780 https://mastodon.social/@dartigen/101754389608830780

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos Fixed title: Facebook blocked 80% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos, or 1.5 million of them.

golemiprague 8y ago

If anything, I think censorship is what causing the rage of those people. A meaningful discussion about immigration is frowned upon and anybody who object mass immigration or immigration from certain places is immediately branded and silenced. What we need is more free speech in NZ and AU, not less, in order to prevent the next shooting.

internet_user 8y ago

It is a regrettable situation that is playing into attacker's hand. Now a single tiny state gets to censorship worldwide? How is that not an inflammatory action?

zed88 8y ago

I think censorship is not going to fix the issue, people have the right to see and face evil if they so wish to and have a strong heart. I am from NZ and a muslim and have watched the video myself an hour after the incident, I know people personally affected by this and I think we all need to come together as human beings and understand that there are some evil ideas and people everywhere around the world. And that's the challenge we face that wouldn't go away because of censorship and putting our heads in the sand.

Forge36 8y ago
I have not seen the video. I can't say I want to either. I can see how censorship would discourage others from repeating the atrocity. Someone else was talking about how scary it was the events that took place occurred so calmly, and with such ease. I don't believe most people can face watching that without negative consequences for their own mental health.
TheTruth1234 8y ago
>> I think censorship is not going to fix the issue, people have the right to see and face evil if they so wish to and have a strong heart. It's the inadvertent exposure that's more of a problem. The access is just so easy. If you were browsing at the time it was happening, you almost couldn't not watch the video because it was so prevelant. I'm imagining a 16 year old coming across it, and wondering how they process it. I made a conscious choice/effort not to watch it and 99% succeeded. But there are moments I couldn't miss because they were everywhere. By the way, that's not burying my head in the sand. It's more about respecting the dead and not needing to see it to understand the darkness in some people.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  The fact that browsers, websites, and apps autoplay video, often with sound, doesn't help. I've posted a ... friendly notice to Google about this.
- huffmsa 8y ago
  You think you understand, but until you really see something or someone go from living and breath to abruptly dead, you don't. As for the 16 year old, it wasn't long ago that by 16 you'd have seen a few of your siblings and friends succumbed to illness or accident. Death used to be part of life and we dealt with it.

wankerrific 8y ago

Facebook and YouTube would sure as f--- fix this problem if, you know, it was the law that they hold liability for any and/all content that was hosted on their platform that they were, you know, profiting off of by displaying ads next to said content. But that would require regulations which is bad for job creations or something.

aussieguy1234 8y ago

I'm not sure how Facebook stores media assets. But it would be stupid to duplicate a video for a shared post more than once. A one to many relationship (one video used by multiple shared posts) is more likely. If that's the case it should be easy to delete the original video, then all of the shares loose their content.

huffmsa 8y ago
But trolls are smart and don't share, they reupload. Which is still easy to catch if you hash the video. But doing something like mirroring or otherwise making a small tweak to the video breaks that hash lookup. Hence 20% making it through.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

matz1 8y ago

This is why we need desentralized, hard to censor platforms. Or at very least a competing platform that has different stand on the issue.

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Other platforms that don't moderate already exist. Unfortunately, because they don't moderate, they are so awful most people won't use them.

skybrian 8y ago

I'm thankful Hacker News doesn't have pictures or video, and it's too bad more online forums don't do the same. More places should stick to plain text. You can link if you need to.

alexcnwy 8y ago

I build a lot of computer vision systems and did my MSc on classifying what’s happening in video and I am VERY skeptical that it’s possible to prevent this from happening (without having a person watch every video). You can edit a video to make it appear as safe content and it’s a cat and mouse game because you need humans to annotate those variations before a ML system can detect them (an unsupervised model will likely lead to loads of false positives). I think the solution is better control over what we see and who we trust enough to allow them to broadcast into our brains.

Const-me 8y ago

I wonder if I’ll try to upload a music video by Britney Spears, what will be the false negative rate of FB’s censorship algorithms? Will it be the same 20%?

MickRapp 8y ago

The body cam video clip showed the spent casings disappearing into thin air. It was a doctored video with special effects added. I saw it and reposted it on both my Twitter and Facebook page. This video covers the discrepancies. Two men in baseball caps were also shooting. https://youtu.be/dOCwYd4ogFY https://youtu.be/dOCwYd4ogFY