Facebook and tech giants to target attacker manifestos, far-right militias in database

[AllyCat]

Source: Reuters

July 26 (Reuters) - A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) 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.

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 (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) 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.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-facebook-tech-giants-target-manifestos-militias-database-2021-07-26/

[bucolic_frolic]

1. When there was only the phone and the post office

this stuff was easier to track. Unless they used mules or carrier pigeons.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. It's about time.

This group was formed in 2017, and until now, this was apparently de rigueur when it came to who were considered "terrorists -



as some convoluted pretzel-twisting would commence to claim that groups like the many militias, et. al., "had no political/anti-government agenda".

[apnu]

9. Truth . America is slowly waking to the idea that we have home-grown terrorists.

We've always had them, but thanks to Republicans equating terrorism to Islam, we have a blind spot to our own history.

Back in the 80s and 90s when I was a teen and young man, the KKK tried to recruit me twice. We always knew they were there and what they were up to, but we didn't call them terrorists, despite the term being widely used in media.

It was impossible to call neo-Nazis and klansmen "terrorists" then. Here we are 40 years from the 80s and just now starting to say it.

We're so fucked up.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. They preferred to take a big gulp and call them "extremists"

so they could reserve the word "terrorists" for "foreign" people... well except when it also came to who they considered "other". I.e., groups in the U.S. like the original Black Panthers or the SLA or WUO.

[Orrex]

3. I'm halfway through a 30-day FB jail sentence

for referring to Trump supporters generally as "a deranged cult of ignorant racist fuckheads who worship a deranged and ignorant racist fuckhead." Didn't single anyone out, simply made a demonstrably true observation.

Meanwhile, Trump cultists routinely tell me to to go fuck myself, or they call me a "fucking r#t#rd" or, in once case, made an actual (but not greatly credible) threat of real, physical harm. All of those were judged to be consistent with community standards.

So I'm amazed that this platform (which, contrary to the inevitable scolding I can not simply abandon), is taking any steps at all to rein in Rightwing extremists, since they ordinarily appear to have free rein on social media with little or no accountability.

[Dream Girl]

4. Please get off Facebook. It has and will continue to cause immeasurable harm to our country and

Our world. Just don’t suppport them.

[Orrex]

5. LOL. Sure

If you and I and everyone we know, along with everyone that they know, were to abandon FB right now, it wouldn't even show up as a suggestion of a blip on Zuck's balance sheet.

For reasons both business & personal, I can't simply get off Facebook, and (in spite of the assurances of some at DU) I can't "send an email" or "write a letter" instead.

[AnrothElf]

6. "can't" or "won't"

Don't act like it's impossible. It's your choice. Own it

[Orrex]

7. LOL. Sure.

"Won't" because I "can't."

Look, I have a simple solution for you: if you don't like Facebook, don't use it. But you're silly to presume to advise others on the demands of their own personal and professional lives.

But your sanctimonious scolding is appreciated, I assure you.

[reACTIONary]

12. Exactly - if you don't like it, don't use it...

... as Judith Krug said in a different context:

I have a real problem when people say, "Well I walked by and you should have seen what was on the computer screen." Well, don't look, sweetie. It's none of your business. Avert your eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Krug

[Dream Girl]

15. It's all of our business.

[reACTIONary]

17. As a liberal...

... I would remind you that liberal, literally, means of and related to freedom; and that the principle liberal value is freedom of speech and of conscience.

[Dream Girl]

14. Facebook has done horrific harm to this country. Some folks just don't give a fig.

I get that. But it’s “convenient” and essential to “professional lives”. Just an excuse.

[Orrex]

23. LOL. Sure.

Doubtless you understand the circumstances of everyone else's personal and professional lives, so you're uniquely qualified to pass judgment on others.

I'd have to guess that you're using some sort of technologically-equipped item to read and post here, yes? Was that item produced using only fair-trade, organic and sustainable components, obtained and handled via ecologically friendly processes while generously compensating the workers who made it possible for you to broadcast your sanctimoniousness? No?

Perhaps its use is "convenient" and essential to your personal or professional life?


Perhaps you can tell me why your embrace of a toxic, destructive technology is just fine, while mine requires me to tolerate your hypocritical, judgemental preaching?

[GoneOffShore]

26. OK - I get off of Facebook - Here's what I lose access to:

Information and suggestions for learning French.
Help in obtaining both a long stay residence card and French citizenship.
Advice on French driving licences - though I have now exchanged and don't visit that group any more.
Travel tips.
Meet-ups with both Anglophones and Francophones.
A continued connection to ex-colleagues and friends back in the US".
The animal rescue pages that Mrs GoS uses to find homes for abandoned cats.
The chance for my photos to be seen, not just on Instagram, but on FB.
The ability to yell at random strangers on the innertubes.

[reACTIONary]

13. Sure....

.... and I heard that video games are the cause of mass murder.

Yet another moral panic.

[Dream Girl]

16. I don't doubt that some video games desentizes people to violence. Mowing people down foe fun.

Think Kyle Rittenhouse and other young guns.

[reACTIONary]

18. YAMP...

Yet another moral panic. Right up there with satanic rock music.

We don't hear much about evil video games anymore. Eventually Face Book will stop getting all the attention and we'll move onto some other evil force that is the cause immeasurable harm to our country and our world.

[Dream Girl]

20. Facebook I has and continues to cause irreparable harm to this country.

I wish I could use it, but I just can’t bring myself to support that platform. I cannot. It is a moral outrage…. Freely allowing disinformation, sowing division, violences, hate, white superiority, peddling foreign influence of our elections and politics. If you are user, you might be okay with that. I am not. And if that seems sanctimonious…oh well.

[reACTIONary]

22. I have a "friend"...

... who thinks just about the same thing about Muslims. She thinks they are the evil force that is sowing division, etc., etc. My advice to her was to visit the local mosque and check it out.

Perhaps I should not be giving unsolicited advice to others, but, honestly, I think you should (if you haven't) give Facebook a try.

I value my anonymity, but under other circumstances I would send you a friend request.

[ancianita]

8. Facebook SAYS it is, but being private, you and I have no way of really knowing if it REALLY is,

do we. Our wanting to trust social media often gets confused with their trustworthiness. They're businesses in the free market, so the telecom free market is not a moral market.

Facebook public announcements about removing their right wing culture's extremists only come when government agencies tell them they're approaching the "aiding and abetting" criminal zone. And it's good corporate PR.

Don't be amazed that platforms avoid criminal liability and will profit until they're told to stop being complicit.

All the complicities of social media, added up, still prop a mass shooting culture that has run with manifestoes and criminally trafficked guns for decades. When they SAY they're helping, there are no guarantees.


Because, you know, corporate values -- nothing personal, just business.

Also looking at your right wing Republican bias, FBI.

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. And how much of this new crack down will focus on left leaning posts?

With the excuse of "balance", I can see FB etc. feeling pressure from conservatives to equal the number of left leaning posts taken down with right wing extremists. And so they will stretch the interpretation for the left, mostly because there are just not as many misleading or false posts from the left. (Some anti-vaxers, or a tiny percent of violent revolutionaries) As someone else posted on the thread, just insulting the Dear Leader will get you banned.

[reACTIONary]

19. That actually is already happening...

... haven't you heard that Facebook is censoring conservatives? I'm pretty sure who is going to benefit from any reresection of the fairness doctrine.

[Duppers]

21. Why has this taken so long? nt

[AllyCat]

24. I don't know. I agree with others here that we Americans just

didn’t see (as a group) these homegrown terrorists as terrorists until it was too late.

[Initech]

25. Good it's time to put the hammer down on the terrorists!