Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-first-amendment? dept.

Google's chairman Eric Schmidt has written an op-ed to The New York Times calling for tools to disrupt speech on social media:

Technology companies should work on tools to disrupt terrorism - such as creating a hate speech "spell-checker" - Google's chairman Eric Schmidt has said. Writing in The New York Times, Mr Schmidt said using technology to automatically filter-out extremist material would "de-escalate tensions on social media" and "remove videos before they spread".

His essay comes as presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton again called on Silicon Valley to help tackle terrorism, specifically seeking tools to combat the so-called Islamic State. "We need to put the great disrupters at work at disrupting ISIS," she said during a speech in Washington DC.

From the NYT editorial:

In Myanmar, connectivity fans the flames of violence against the Rohingya, the minority Muslim population. In Russia, farms of online trolls systematically harass democratic voices and spread false information on the Internet and on social media. And in the Middle East, terrorists use social media to recruit new members. In particular, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has harnessed social media to appeal to disaffected young people, giving them a sense of belonging and direction that they are not getting anywhere else. The militants' propaganda videos are high on style and production value. They're slick and marketable. In short, they are deluding some people to believe that living a life fueled by hatred and violence is actually ... cool.

This is where our own relationship with the Internet, and with technology, must be examined more closely. The Internet is not just a series of tubes transmitting information from place to place, terminal to terminal, without regard for those typing on their keyboards or reading on their screens. The people who use any technology are the ones who need to define its role in society. Technology doesn't work on its own, after all. It's just a tool. We are the ones who harness its power.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:25PM (#274048)

    The recipe for losing a republic and gaining a tyranny hasn't changed much in thousands of years. When a large number of people perceive themselves as poor and others as rich, you will end up with social unrest that can manifest as class struggle, racial hatred, an Arab Spring, a riot, a civil war -- at the bottom of all of them is money.

    Today's PEGIDA movement in Germany is strong only in the East, where the people don't feel that they got equal treatment in unification with the West and blame their higher unemployment and lower standard of living on a Berlin that doesn't care about them -- but suddenly does care about importing foreigners. The FN in France capitalizes on the crumbling French economy. Trump rails against Mexicans, Muslims, anyone vaguely foreign, since citizens feel that they're on the losing end of a deal now being offered to foreigners. Same story. It's about money in the end.

    Fix the economy and reduce inequality between the rich and the poor, and populism will not be a problem.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +2  
       Insightful=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   2