The UK government’s pressure on tech giants to do more about online extremism just got weaponized. The Home Secretary has today announced a machine learning tool, developed with public money by a local AI firm, which the government says can automatically detect propaganda produced by the Islamic State terror group with “an extremely high degree of accuracy”. Read More
Category: Terrorism
Unilever warns social media to clean up “toxic” content
Consumer goods giant Unilever, a maker of branded soaps, foodstuffs and personal care items and also one of the world’s biggest online advertisers, has fired a warning shot across the bows of social media giants by threatening to pull ads from digital platforms if they don’t do more to mitigate the spread of what it dubs “toxic” online content — be it fake news… Read More
Telegram and social media giants spanked in UK PM’s Davos speech
Social media giants have once again been singled out for a high profile public spanking over social responsibility and illegal online content in Europe. Read More
View More Telegram and social media giants spanked in UK PM’s Davos speechEurope keeps up the pressure on social media over illegal content takedowns
The European Union’s executive body is continuing to pressure social media firms to get better at removing illegal content from their platforms before it has a chance to spread further online. Read More
YouTube: More AI can fix AI-generated “bubbles of hate”
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter faced another online hate crime grilling today by UK parliamentarians visibly frustrated at their continued failures to apply their own community guidelines and take down reported hate speech. Read More
Study: Russia-linked fake Twitter accounts sought to spread terrorist-related social division in the UK
A study by UK academics looking at how fake social media accounts were used to spread socially divisive messages in the wake of a spate of domestic terrorists attacks this year has warned that the problem of hostile interference in public debate …
View More Study: Russia-linked fake Twitter accounts sought to spread terrorist-related social division in the UKIn major policy change YouTube is now taking down more videos of known extremists
A spokeswoman told us YouTube has broadened its policy for taking down extremist content: Not just removing videos that directly preach hate or seek to incite violence but also removing other videos of named terrorists, unless the content is journalistic or educational in nature — such as news reports and documentaries. Read More
YouTube finally blocks a known terrorist propagandist from its site
The extremist jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike six years ago. But until this month, he was the leading English-speaking jihadist recruiter through more than 70,000 videos posted on YouTube.
Three-quarters of tho…
Battery Ventures leads $75M Series D in travel activities platform GetYourGuide
Right after Berlin-based travel activities booking platform GetYourGuide announced its $50 million Series C, one of Europe’s biggest tourist draws, the city of Paris, was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks. The awful events in Paris were clearly not good news for a tourism-dependent business. Read More
The NYC terror suspect was an Uber driver
Uber has confirmed with Mashable that the New York City terror suspect, who killed eight people and injured at least 11 by driving a truck through a bike lane on Tuesday, was an active Uber driver who passed the company’s background check.
Uber says …