YouTube has begun redirecting online searches for violent extremist content and ISIS recruitment propaganda to other anti-terrorist videos.
 |
| YouTube |
This follows an initiative, announced a month ago by the video-sharing site and parent Google, to combat online extremism content using an array of techniques.
This strategy, developed with Jigsaw, an incubator company within Google and YouTube's parent company Alphabet, and London-based anti-extremist tech firm Moonshot CVE, basically sends YouTube requests for certain keywords tied to violent extremism to a playlist of videos "debunking violent extremist recruiting narratives," the companies said in an online post Thursday.
Extremist groups including ISIS use video on YouTube to recruit and radicalize prospective terrorists. This redirect method aims to deter such movements to drive "people away from violent extremist propaganda and steer them toward video content that confronts extremist messages and debunks its mythology," the companies say in the post.
Online extremism has plagued online outlets including Google and YouTube. Earlier this year, many advertisers began pulling their business from YouTube after discovering their ads played on videos promoting terrorism and extremist content. Subsequently, YouTube established a 10,000-viewer requirement for its creators to earn revenue on their videos.
Three months later, extremist content on YouTube became an issue again when it was revealed one of the three attackers in the London Bridge terror incident June 3 had been influenced by extremist videos on YouTube.
After that, Google and YouTube said it was not only developing technology to thwart extremist content, but also adding more human experts to spot troublesome videos. The companies also said they had joined Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, in establishing an international online terrorism forum.
0 Comments