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Facebook Expands Definition of Terrorist Organizations To Limit Extremism (nytimes.com) 145

Posted by BeauHD from the what-to-expect dept.
Facebook on Tuesday announced a series of changes to limit hate speech and extremism on the social network, expanding its definition of terrorist organizations and planning to deploy artificial intelligence to better spot and block live videos of shooters. The company is also expanding a program that redirects users searching for extremism to resources intended to help them leave hate groups behind. The New York Times reports: The announcement came the day before a hearing on Capitol Hill on how Facebook, Google and Twitter handle violent content. Lawmakers are expected to ask executives how they are handling posts from extremists. In its announcement post, Facebook said the Christchurch tragedy "strongly" influenced its updates. And the company said it had recently developed an industry plan with Microsoft, Twitter, Google and Amazon to address how technology is used to spread terrorist accounts.

Facebook said that it had mostly focused on identifying organizations like separatists, Islamist militants and white supremacists. The company said that it would now consider all people and organizations that proclaim or are engaged in violence leading to real-world harm. The team leading its efforts to counter extremism on its platform has grown to 350 people, Facebook said, and includes experts in law enforcement, national security, counterterrorism and academics studying radicalization. To detect more content relating to real-world harm, Facebook said it was updating its artificial intelligence to better catch first-person shooting videos. The company said it was working with American and British law enforcement officials to obtain camera footage from their firearms training programs to help its A.I. learn what real, first-person violent events look like.
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Facebook Expands Definition of Terrorist Organizations To Limit Extremism More

Facebook Expands Definition of Terrorist Organizations To Limit Extremism

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  • Good. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
    This probably means going after Antifa. The last thing the left needs right now is violence. We're nowhere's near far enough along the path to fascism. If anything we're right at the stage where the right wing is actively trying to provoke violence so they can clamp down.

    There's plenty of time to put pro-working class folks like Bernie Sanders, Liz Warren and AOC in charge (who's helping to primary another right wing "Republican with a D Next to their name" third way Democrat), turn this ship around and

    • We have always been at war with antifa (Score:5, Insightful)

      by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @10:56PM (#59206560)

      We have always been at war with Oceana.

      • We have always been at war with Oceana.

        4891

        Expanding the definition of Terrorism is double-plus good. In Facebook's latest version of new-see there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only artificial intelligence to better spot and block the double-plus bad. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston?

        --

        Technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration of freedom.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Seems unlikely to me, maybe the anti-war progressives.
      I think it's more likely that they'll use this as an excuse to ban anyone left of Mao that gets sufficient attention.

  • ... this just in [bbc.com].

    Facebook unveils its plan for oversight board

  • So (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dunbal ( 464142 ) * on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @10:34PM (#59206504)
    In order to have fewer criminals, we just made it easier to be considered a criminal.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      BINGO!

      The entire place is rabid pack of hyper-authoritarian wokescolds.

    • There are a lot of gullible people out there, who are easily convinced. Extremist groups are different from people who we just disagree with.
      There is a difference between I support Policy A, while I reject Policy B. Vs. I support Policy A, and you MUST Support Policy A too, and if your support Policy B, then you Must be an evil person who should injured in some way.
      What makes it worse, is people who latch on to these people will actually go out and start injuring people.

      The line falls when such groups enco

  • Can we get 1,000,000 Call of Duty Licenses? (Score:3)

    by Arzaboa ( 2804779 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @10:52PM (#59206542)

    To train AI, you need a data-set. Most data-sets that are worth anything have at minimum of a million data points. There are not that many first person shooter events on camera.

    Either they are filming first person shooting videos themselves, or they are pulling this stuff from video games and TV shows.

    --
    Houdini used to pull rabbits out of a hat, but he never tried to make a living out of selling them when he had pulled them out of the hat - Tommy Douglas

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • They said that 4chan and 8chan are banned from being linked, and probably text references as well.

        I do love it when one social media company labels another "terrorist" and blocks them because of what a user posted. The delicious irony...

    • Most data-sets that are worth anything have at minimum of a million data points. There are not that many first person shooter events on camera.

      1million is fine for an image training dataset, but you don't need them all to be of a shooter. That dataset will have hundreds or thousands of different categories.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @11:00PM (#59206568)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      Even more lists to be on, awesome. I'm pretty sure the FBI already beat them to it, considering they believe

      Why would the FBI rely on their own lists which are subject to scrutiny by Congress and the courts when they can use someone elses?

  • So hard to get good video from the Peloponissian War.

  • Anyone want to lose $500 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OcCbXntZLeOg ( 6195574 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @11:17PM (#59206610)
    I'll bet anyone $500 that no "terrorist" definition devised by a single social media company will label groups that have committed actual acts of terrorism, like the IDF against Palestinians, as a terrorist group. Somehow, though, they'll manage to label groups as terrorists that have done nothing other than suggest having a penis makes you, in fact, male, or that perhaps Donald Trump isn't actually the second coming of Adolf Hitler.

    • He definitely does have all the hallmarks.
      - Country that lost its pride.
      - Unemployment.
      - "Great" speeches (in the eyes of his followers)...
      - ... of making the USA great again.
      - Nationalist.
      - Racist*.
      - Blaming scapegoats like the Mexicans or Chinese.

      Making Germany great again is precisely what Hitler ran on.
      Blaming the Jews, Gypsies, gays, disabled people and many others (Jews were just a fraction of the total), was the other key part.

      So yeah... unless we know see with our own eyes what happens at the end of

      • Making Germany great again is precisely what Hitler ran on.

        Right; so you should vote for the guy who wants to make your country shit again.

        Lefty logic.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Um, no. There's a difference between saying you're going to make a country great again, and actually making it great again.

          Trump is definitely doing the former, and definitely not doing the latter. Under Trump the US has haemorrhaged global influence, fallen out with it's closest allies, enacted legislation that increases inequality and decreases healthcare access, reduced the low end labour market, increased division, reduced environmental quality making it a worse place to live, and increased hatred, bigo

        • Making Germany great again is precisely what Hitler ran on.

          Right; so you should vote for the guy who wants to make your country shit again.

          Lefty logic.

          On a related note, now I'm left wondering precisely what socialist leaders ran on. Are the same marketing tactics that ultimately killed 100 million citizens in the 20th Century still working today? I'm guessing they are. I mean, it's not like we actually learn from history. If we did, I wouldn't be bringing this up as a valid concern in the 21st Century...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rikkards ( 98006 )

            When you have a bag of tricks that works to get you elected that has worked time and time again, why won't you use it?
            The psyche of the average voter hasn't changed since the dawn of democracy, the only thing that has is we now have the tools and understanding how to sway people one way or the other using biological imperatives. Ultimately it comes down to us vs something. Take your pick on what you want to be the latter.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Shotgun ( 30919 )

            On a related note, now I'm left wondering precisely what socialist leaders ran on. Are the same marketing tactics that ultimately killed 100 million citizens in the 20th Century still working today?

            Look at the rich guy right there! See how much stuff he has! He STOLE it from YOU! You DESERVE his stuff! Give ME power, and I'll make sure you get HIS stuff! For the GREATER GOOOD!

            It's a line as old as human history, and it never changes.

            • Sounds pretty much exactly the same as this one National Socialist leader back in the 30s.

              Look at the Jewish guy right there! See how much stuff he has! He STOLE it from YOU! You DESERVE his stuff! Give ME power, and I'll make sure you get HIS stuff! For the GREATER GOOOD!

              It's really a very popular way of appealing to the masses.

        • You should vote for the guy who promises you something that you know he can keep.

          Unfortunately that requires an electorate that has an education.

      • Yeah but he's missing that whole "Gassing of 3 million people" thing that made Hitler.... HITLER. I mean even Stalin (who was on our side) killed a few million himself in gulags. But gloss over your history and blame Donald Trump. Public education at its finest.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          Yeah but he's missing that whole "Gassing of 3 million people" thing that made Hitler.... HITLER.

          It took Hitler 8 years to get that far.Trump is only on year 3.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Pyramid ( 57001 )

            You're ignoring that the most important ingredient to Hitler's rise was a populace willing to buy into his authoritarian mindset. If you think Trump and his followers are the only people capable of this, YOU are the problem.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Maybe it's time to get off your local media diet. Go read some history books that haven't been infected by revisionist historians. Cause that whole "Making Germany great again is precisely what Hitler ran on." Isn't the actual case, I mean sure Germany was in a pretty bad spot being punitively hit for reparations from WWI. And there was inflation as bad as Zimbabwae's current state. And things were so bad, that the gap between rich and poor hadn't been seen in Europe since the 1400's. And really the KPD

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          And really the KPD(that's the commies), ran on the exact same platform from around 1929 until they were banned as their antifa thugs were engaging in street riots, beating people up,

          And guess who they were usually rioting and fighting against? The SA (sturmabteilung). The enforcer/militant wing of the NSDAP.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            And guess who they were usually rioting and fighting against? The SA (sturmabteilung). The enforcer/militant wing of the NSDAP.

            You mean the SA wasn't created because antifa had been beating the piss out of people for years, and the police wouldn't arrest them. The courts wouldn't convict them. The politicians lauded their actions.

            Seems like there's some heavy gaps in your history from that period.

    • It'll be vague mumbo jumbo so they can ban anyone who offends the religion of intersectionality.
  • will find out who is been sinful...

  • Article summarized:

    Corporate Nazis who control Faceboot announce that henceforth anyone who is not a Corporate Nazi will be considered a "terrorist", and subject to the same arbitrary and capricious bans to which ordinary users are already subject.

  • Pretty convenient they roll out this the day before testimony. Who cares if it works. Who cares if it reduces anything. As long as they can deflect and claim they ARE doing something, why just yesterday we increased our scope an we are waiting to see what effect that has.

    And congress is so fucking stupid theyâ(TM)ll fall for it. EVERY SINGLE TIME. It never gets old.

  • Truespeak is goodspeak (Score:5, Insightful)

    by biggaijin ( 126513 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @12:30AM (#59206786)

    All of us know that truespeak is the only goodspeak, and who better to decide what truespeak is than the geniuses at Facebook? We all are weak and desperately need someone to tell us what speech is acceptable and, more important, what speech is not. I suppose the Government could probably do a great job of this too, but Facebook seems to have arrived there first. All hail Facebook, our good shepherds!

    • I've definitely triggered some mod alerts, just as an artist/writer, having recently started using Facebook to post a stream of consciousness, some art, etc. If truespeak was what protected me, then that now includes topics such as suicide, terrorism, drugs, human trafficking and others worthy of the strange monologues and works I produce. There are also pictures that you might find on my timeline that might raise some... questions, but really, no comment yo! (Well, I'll just say, I didn't hurt nobody! And

  • "The team leading its efforts to counter extremism on its platform has grown to 350 people, Facebook said, and includes experts in law enforcement, national security, counterterrorism"

    Aren't these all terrorist groups espousing real-world harm? Quick facebook, better loosen that petard before you hoist yourself!

    "The team leading its efforts to counter extremism on its platform has grown to 350 people, Facebook said"

    Out of how many billions?

  • Facebook should continue to expand its definition until it ends up banning itself from the Internet. Ditto for the colluding companies sharing in this scheme.

  • This is what their shitty excuse of a half-assed pseudo-imitationoid (NOT AI!) of a neural net will learn.

  • Privatising censorship (Score:3)

    by mrwireless ( 1056688 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @04:13AM (#59207266)

    Censorship used to be the purview of the government, an elected, publicly accountable body. However, as our public discourse is increasingly digitized and run through a few large companies, the power is shifting.

    The scary thing is not just that Facebook et al. are gaining more power in defining what speech is deemed acceptable, but that many government officials actually cheer this on. In many cases the government officials asked these platforms to do a better job of policing speech, without actually setting public standards or having an open debate about where the limits should be. Without staying in control.

    On top of this, the companies further evaporate responsibility by using machine learning to asses the speech, which means that in many cases they themselves can't even predict or even explain how a new algorithm will deal with complex cases. All they can do is tweak the algorithm after it has misjudged.

    The simplistic nature of this algorithmic monitoring could harm our public discourse. Speculatively, this situation could aggravate the situation by creating chilling effects for certain types of speech. For example, these algorithms are known do a very poor job of distinguishing things like parodies, often flagging them for removal. Yet humor is a vital means of de-escalation, and allows for self-reflection to occur by those who may have already settled on an extreme political position.

    In a twist of irony, it seems the Californian Ideology - amongst other things a belief that digital technology could help spread democracy by empowering citizens - has mostly just shifted power from government bodies to companies instead.

    In the movie Iron Man, Tony Stark quips that he has "successfully privatized world peace". But while funny in a movie, the real-world shifts in this direction should actually lead to more concern.

    • Privatization helps only if multiple companies compete with each other and this makes them improve themselves because people can vote with their feet. Each large scale social platform would need some way to police speech and the only way to prevent abuses is to have alternatives.So a person could choose another platform if this platform policing guidelines are not what they agree with.

  • "The company said that it would now consider all people and organizations that proclaim or are engaged in violence leading to real-world harm."

    Better take down those police recruitment ads, then. They are specifically hiring Americans to engage in acts of violence against Americans. And in fact, they had better drop everything from the FBI and CIA. Hell, everything from the federal government, really.

    But they won't do that. They'll use this to chase unpopular speech off their platform. You know, the only ki

  • Are we there yet? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @06:48AM (#59207566)

    So "terrorist" has now been finally stripped of all meaning it had remaining because it's now even officially relabeled to "anything we don't like"?

    Folks, when I said that a few years ago, I was making a joke, I wasn't making a suggestion!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hentes ( 2461350 )

      Come on now, stop being such a terrorist!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shotgun ( 30919 )

      Well, "racist" stopped working, so they had to find another "ist" to turn to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      Folks, when I said that a few years ago, I was making a joke, I wasn't making a suggestion!

      Great, just great. We have opportunists making terrorist threats again.

  • Is /. ever going to fix their comment system? Even with forced login, we have legitimate comments marked 0/troll, and Mr. Swastika Spambot marked +1/Insightful. Do any real people even post here anymore or is it all just 4chan spillover?
    • Yes, how hard is it to write like a two line program to strip swastikas from the comment system. It's like the editors either don't care or actually like this garbage. You'd think they'd at least remove it because it's off topic. 2019 and this is what they provide.
  • I hear China is having a problem with dangerous extremists that need to be stopped immediately just at this moment. Thank goodness big tech can help them!

  • Problem: company isn't transparent, has vague draconian rules implemented by bad code

    Solution: Expand opaque, vague, draconian rules implemented by more bad code.

  • So will Facebook consider me a terrorist? (Score:3)

    by IDtheTarget ( 1055608 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @09:54AM (#59208204)
    I'm a veteran with over 32 years of service. Back in 2009, Janet Napolitano suggested that I may be a terrorist [washingtontimes.com]. Now San Francisco has decided people belonging to a group that promotes civil rights (the second amendment is a civil right) is a terrorist organization. [nytimes.com]

    I've heard that (sorry,no link) people are labeled as extremists for nothing more than believing that the constitution should be followed.

    So, is Facebook going to delete my account?

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