Category Archives: Internet

Britain, Government, Internet, Society, Technology

The Home Office unveils new technology that detects hate content

INTERNET & ONLINE ACTIVITY

Home Office steps up fight against terror content with new technology.

INTERNET giants will have little excuse for allowing extremist propaganda on their websites after the Home Office unveiled new technology to detect hate content.

Web firms have been told to increase efforts to remove terror-related posts after the UK was hit by attacks in London and Manchester last year. All had an “online component”, the Home Office said.

Now the UK Government has revealed advanced technology that aims to automatically detect extremist and hateful videos and content before they become publicly available online.

Tests have shown the £600,000 tool can identify 94 per cent of the entire content in Islamic State propaganda videos. The breakthrough came as a Home Office analysis revealed IS supporters used more than 400 separate online platforms to pump out propaganda last year.

The Home Office said it would share the technology with firms to combat the abuse of their platforms. Home Secretary Amber Rudd welcomed the development as she visited San Francisco for talks with technology giants. She said: “Those who commit terror attacks on our streets are increasingly influenced by what they see online. I hope this new technology the Home Office has helped develop can support others to go further and faster.”

Using ‘advanced machine learning’, the technology analyses terror videos to pick out ‘subtle signals’ and determine whether it is IS related propaganda or something else, such as a news report. The systems can be adapted to look for other violent extremist content.

The chief executive of ASI Data Science, Marc Warner, whose firm developed the new model, said major organisations such as Google and Facebook could not “solve this problem alone”.

 

YET, we all know that no amount of moral pressure has so far made Facebook, Google and Twitter remove the deluge of hate-filled extremism, sick trolling and other disturbing extreme content that pollutes their sites. Hit them in their pockets and they might just begin to change their ways.

It is promising that large scale multiconglomerate companies such as the Anglo-Dutch company Unilever is threatening to pull all advertising from the three internet giants if they don’t clamp down on this filth. Unilever – which has a £6.8billion-a-year marketing budget – is thoroughly sick of seeing its products being placed next to terrorist propaganda or sexualised images of children and has decided enough is enough.

Other big firms – notably Procter and Gamble – are making similar threats. We should sincerely hope many more will follow.

All we ever hear from the tech giants are weasel words. They say they take down extremist or illegal material as soon as they are alerted to it, but this is demonstrably untrue. And why should they have to be alerted, rather than policing this kind of content themselves?

The Home Office has now unveiled a new system that can automatically detect 94 per cent of Islamic State propaganda on the web. Is it really beyond multibillion pound corporations that specialise in technology to do the same – or even better? They have run out of excuses.

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Britain, Government, Internet, Society

UK Justice Secretary says online trolling could be a criminal offence

INTERNET TROLLING

Online trolling could soon be made a criminal offence in the UK

ONLINE TROLLING could be made a criminal offence, the UK Justice Secretary has said.

David Gauke suggested he was prepared to act after Katie Price launched a campaign and petition for tougher penalties for web abuse.

The TV personality’s son Harvey, 15 – who is partially blind, autistic and has a range of other health problems – suffers constant abuse on social media, but last year a 19-year-old who targeted him on Twitter only received a police caution. Miss Price then set up a campaign demanding a new criminal offence to make online trolling a specific crime. Thus far, it has received 220,000 signatures – and led to an appearance in front of the Commons petitions committee.

Miss Price told the committee that a line should be drawn between ‘banter’ and criminal abuse – and said the law had failed to keep up with the changing use of technology.

Asked about the concerns Miss Price had, Mr Gauke acknowledged that we often see some appalling behaviour on social media.

The intervention comes just days after Theresa May warned social media giants they were undermining British democracy by allowing ‘intimidation and aggression’ to run riot online.

Firms such as Facebook and Twitter will face an official assessment of whether they are cracking down on abuse. There will also be an annual transparency report to expose the worst companies which fail to tackle the scourge of web hatred.

Officials will publish data on the scale of harmful content reported to different internet firms, how much is removed and how quickly.

Speaking to MPs, Miss Price said police were powerless to act in many cases of online abuse. She also said she wanted to see the creation of a register of offenders.

Speaking about her son’s case, Miss Price said: ‘Even the police were really embarrassed because it got to the point where they couldn’t take it any further because they couldn’t charge them with anything because there is nothing in place… since then it has just continued.

‘If it was a criminal offence I do not believe there would be so much of it . . . it would stop so many deaths, harassment and abuse. Some of you MPs have even had it as well. It happens to everyone – so it’s a no-brainer really.’

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