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CNBC reports:
Facebook, Google and Twitter told Congress Wednesday that they’ve gone beyond screening and removing extremist content and are creating more anti-terror propaganda to pre-empt violent messages at the source.
Representatives from the three companies told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that they are, among other things, targeting people likely to be swayed by extremist messages and pushing content aimed at countering that message. Several senators criticized their past efforts as not going far enough.
“We believe that a key part of combating extremism is preventing recruitment by disrupting the underlying ideologies that drive people to commit acts of violence. That’s why we support a variety of counterspeech efforts,” said Monika Bickert, Facebook’s head of global policy management, according to an advance copy of her testimony obtained by CNBC.
The Washington Examiner reports:
“Since June, YouTube has removed over 160,000 violent extremist videos and has terminated approximately 30,000 channels for violation of our policies against terrorist content,” said Juniper Downs, YouTube’s public policy director, in prepared remarks for the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday. “We achieved these results through tougher policies, enhanced enforcement by machines and people, and collaboration with outside experts.”
Downs described how YouTube uses “a mix of technology and humans to remove violent content immediately.” In addition to using algorithms — which catch 98 percent of extremist content — YouTube’s parent company Google also has about 10,000 people monitoring content on the site daily.
The Hill reports:
The companies use such alliances to swap data like “hashes,” allow them to tag photos and videos that have already been flagged for removal and use their algorithms to quickly detect attempts to re-upload such content and delete it immediately.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) gave the companies high marks for their responses following the hearing and praised the steps they’ve taken.
“I think this was a really good first step,” Thune told reporters after the hearing. “I feel like the companies, by and large, were pretty responsive and I think we got a better sense for the things that they’re already doing. I don’t know at this point it requires or necessitates any additional action.”