Tech giants take further action to tackle extremism
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are going after white supremacist and far-right groups, as part of an expansion of their efforts to combat extremism and dangerous hate speech, the companies revealed to Reuters.
The tech giants will now recognize a range of white supremacist groups and far-right militias, like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters, as official terrorist organizations.
The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a nonprofit that counts the tech giants among its members, is reportedly expanding a shared database used to identify extremist content across platforms with data gathered on white supremacist groups: manifestos, publications, lists of users, and unique pieces of content that were already removed from other services.
By adding that intel to the database, services like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter intend to more quickly remove it from their own platforms. It should be noted that this is the first time their collective efforts have been broadened to include domestic groups.
“Until now, the GIFCT database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list […] 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 UN 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,” Reuters reported.
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