Facebook, tech giants to target manifestos, far-right militias in database
By Elizabeth Culliford
(Reuters) - A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the
biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook and
Microsoft is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared
between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white
supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.
Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism's
(GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a
United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist
extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos -
often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence - and other
publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It
will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs
from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.
The firms, which include Twitter and Alphabet Inc's YouTube, share
"hashes," unique numerical representations of original pieces of
content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these
to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove
it.
While the project reduces the amount of extremist content on
mainstream platforms, groups can still post violent images and rhetoric on many
other sites and parts of the internet.
The tech group wants to combat a wider range of threats, said
GIFCT's Executive Director Nicholas Rasmussen in an interview with Reuters.
"Anyone looking at the terrorism or extremism landscape has
to appreciate that there are other parts... that are demanding attention right
now," Rasmussen said, citing the threats of far-right or racially
motivated violent extremism.
The tech platforms have long been criticized for failing to police
violent extremist content, though they also face concerns over censorship. The
issue of domestic extremism, including white supremacy and militia groups, took
on renewed urgency
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-administration-unveils-plan-tackle-domestic-terrorism-2021-06-15
following the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
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