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Facebook, Twitter and Other Tech Giants To Target Attacker Manifestos, Far-right Militias in Database (reuters.com) 197

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. From the report: 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 '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.
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Facebook, Twitter and Other Tech Giants To Target Attacker Manifestos, Far-right Militias in Database

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  • by fche ( 36607 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:27AM (#61621323)

    Want to see the database of Unacceptable content.

    • But everyone wants to read the Unabomber manifesto.

      • by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @10:55AM (#61621433)

        Though the message in manifestos of shooters and bombers is irrelevant, what is relevant is having the document itself in plain view to prevent the media lying about it. If you look up the Christchurch shooter's manifesto there are inconsistent reports on its page count, some saying 87, some saying 74. The copy I have is 74 pages, and when double-checking my facts I found some 87 page versions of unknown vericacy, but these are both second hand and not from the original source so there's no way to tell first hand that I have the real thing. Yes I could compare checksums but again I don't have the original checksum from the one that wrote it.

        If you ban a book, you can claim an infinite amount of reasons as to why it's banned (including made-up ones), and nobody will be able to fact-check you. If not for bookstores carrying it, you would think that Mein Kampf was 700 pages of nothing but "I HATE JEWS" typed over and over like a nazi parody of The Shining. The idea of banning someone from even looking at specific works because it's "dangerous" is an ideology used by cults and fascists to begin with.

        People will also claim that reading a manifesto can urge someone into repeating the acts, but I believe firmly that magic does not exist in this world, ergo a manifesto has no inherent magical powers. As such it stands to reason that if someone reads a manifesto and shoots up a place, he was already evil to begin with.

        • You don't believe in magic but you do believe some people are inherently evil? I just want to clear up the facts about checking if someone is evil? Do cruxifixes work?

        • by nucrash ( 549705 ) on Monday July 26, 2021 @12:47PM (#61621885)

          The Christchruch shooter's manifesto was a shitpost. He literally posted it as a distraction to screw with the media. People who were undercover in white supremacist forums called this out as quickly as they could plow through the document.

          Giving any actually credence to the thing is dumb on your part. Also, page count could easily very based on things such as formatting for margins or text size to make it legible to more people.

          https://www.bellingcat.com/new... [bellingcat.com]

          “Spyro the Dragon 3”, a video game, taught him “ethno-nationalism”?

        • by CODiNE ( 27417 )

          I read Mein Kampf in college, it was quite interesting. Don't worry I'm the kind of person they threw in the ovens. What I found most interesting was the grievances that he listed and the stories of oppression of one type of German by others. It taught me that skin color isn't the main factor and any group can be oppressed by others. And that legitimate suffering doesn't give the oppressed a blank check to unleash their idea of justice on everyone else. The book strangely humanizes him and warns us that ext

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          This is what journalists are supposed to be for. They are supposed to verify these things and used to be granted special access to such documents even if they were not public for this very reason.

          That's breaking down now, partly due to every blogger claiming they are a journalist and demanding access and then screaming cover-up when refused, and partly because the far right has been on the Lügenpresse (lying media) bandwagon for several years now.

      • Probably because he was actually an intelligent and respected mathematician before becoming a terrorist.

    • Pretty simple really. Stuff like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Also if you break into a federal building and interrupt due process you're a domestic terrorist. https://archive.is/tqAVy [archive.is]

    • You're free to want things and they are free to ignore you. Likewise, you are free to boycott them for them ignoring you.

    • You can't.

      You need to understand that if you read this unapproved, hateful material, you will most likely storm the capital and try to destroy American democracy.

      We need to protect you from violent and dehumanizing ideas (excluding those from movies/porn). You should thank those in charge for reading the material so you don't have to risk becoming subversive.

  • Those social media are banding together to create groupthink. For example, they suppress coverage of certain government committing atrocities and ethnic cleansing and raise smokescreen of racism claims.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by jd ( 1658 )

      Well, given that the racists and right-wing fringe groups are the ones committing the majority of the attrocities, it's reasonable to conclude that it's not a smokescreen.

      • So BLM and antifa are right wing? The people that have rioted, burned and looted and on occasion murdered people with impunity across the nation for more than a year? They are right wing?
        • Please, I beg you. Post a list of people murdered by these left wing groups.

        • The American left doesn't believe that antifia is real and they think that all the violence caused by BLM is actually right wingers in disguise.

    • Those social media are banding together to create groupthink

      Nah, they are banding together to create a terrorism detector. These are literally people who commit acts of terrorism.

      • They give governments and groups that commit and sponsor terrorism and mass murder free pass, while censoring others. They lump those that speak out against ills of government and society with those that actually commit terrorism.

        • They give governments and groups that commit and sponsor terrorism and mass murder free pass,

          Such as?

          • by Cederic ( 9623 )

            Ayatollah Khamenei.

            I think he qualifies on all counts.

            • I assume you mean current supreme leader of Iran. I think the specific issue here is that he has not used their platforms to further any of that though I could be wrong. Social media companies showed that they will excuse inexcusable behavior from leaders if it furthers their business. Their handling for the former US President made that unmistakably clear.

              • by Cederic ( 9623 )

                Interesting. What was the inexcusable behaviour from the former US President that is worse than the Ayatollah's repeated calls for violence, religious intolerance and attacks on Israel?

                https://www.arabnews.com/node/... [arabnews.com] or https://www.nationalreview.com... [nationalreview.com]

                Tell me, do, when did the former US President do something worse than ask for a 'final solution' for Israel?
                https://www.timesofisrael.com/... [timesofisrael.com]

                • Ayatollah's repeated calls for violence, religious intolerance and attacks on Israel?

                  I read the tweets and they can be interpreted multiple ways. His ambiguous language saves him from being in violation of the ToS, even if you know what he means.

                  Tell me, do, when did the former US President do something worse than ask for a 'final solution' for Israel?

                  His overt racism and promotion of it (even on twitter) seems worse than a piece of vile propaganda since it encourages violence within the nation itself. A large percentage of hate crimes are crimes of opportunity and they drastically increased while he was in office.

                  • by Cederic ( 9623 )

                    His overt racism and promotion of it (even on twitter)

                    Oh? I missed that. Especially on twitter. Perhaps you can support this defamatory claim?

                    seems worse than a piece of vile propaganda

                    What the fuck? Some alleged and unsubstantiated claim of racism is worse than demanding the destruction of a nation state, that's being attacked by terrorists already?

                    You're just not credible.

                    A large percentage of hate crimes are crimes of opportunity and they drastically increased while he was in office.

                    They did. In addition to the extreme levels of black on black violence there was an uptick in black on white violence, an increase in white on 'innocent white person who holds the wrong views' violence, and a major increase in viole

  • Censor anyone, any group that they do not like.
  • this is NOT going to end well

  • While I applaud social media companies trying to clamp down on white supremacy, there needs something that fills the void that many of these people seek from white supremacist groups. If not, we are just pushing these groups underground where they are going to be more difficult to track. We have already observed how misinformation groups on COVID-19 have shifted their language to avoid detection by Facebook.

    We can't outright destroy these groups. We need to find a way to make them less attractive, hopefu

  • Rightthink shall be enforced! Resistance is futile!

  • Play ball, don't buck the system. Keep your head down. Think clean thoughts, and you'll be safe. The government is for the people and by the people, and has your best needs as it's highest priority. You can trust us! We never lie! Google's motto is "First, do no evil" - so, as you can tell, they're not evil!

  • "intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes": As in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand government intelligence agencies? Or is there some other Five Eyes?

  • Every time they run the algorithms, their profit motive in serving up extremism to radical extremist makes them not do it.

    Can they make a profit? Sure.

    Will they find as many gullible people to click on links and buy fake meds and extremist ideologies? No.

    Wake me when the EU shuts them all down.

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