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from the seven-words-you-can't-say-on-the-internet? dept.
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
The Internet can be an ugly place — one where the mere act of expressing an opinion can result in a barrage of name-calling, harassment and sometimes threats of violence.
Nearly half of U.S. Internet users say they have experienced such intimidation; a third say they have resisted posting something online out of fear, according to the nonprofit Data and Society Research Institute. Women, particularly young women and women of color, are disproportionately targeted.
Now Google is zeroing in on the problem. On Thursday, the company publicly released an artificial intelligence tool, called Perspective, that scans online content and rates how "toxic" it is based on ratings by thousands of people.
For example, you can feed an online comment board into Perspective and see the percentage of users that said it was toxic. The toxicity score can help people decide whether they want to participate in the conversation, said Jared Cohen, president of Jigsaw, the company's think tank (previously called Google Ideas). Publishers of news sites can also use the tool to monitor their comment boards, he said.
[...] Google's troll-fighting efforts trail that of other tech companies and nonprofit groups. Earlier this month, Twitter — which has developed a reputation as a playground for abuse — launched new tools to cut on trolling.
[...] Asked whether the site could result in censoring free speech, Cohen said that the software tool wasn't intended to bypass human judgment, but to flag "low-hanging fruit" that could then be passed on to human moderators.
Because speech should only be free if it's polite and you agree with it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @01:23PM
Having an AI decide for you is the exact opposite of putting the responsibility into anyone but Google themselves, which is the worst aspect of this story. But the main point is that Google intends to censor statements that wouldn't be considered abusive to a sensible adult, but only to a handful of lunatics who percieve disagreement with certain positions as abusive.
This includes your assessment of misunderstanding the kind of "trolling" they intend to censor.
This is simply your inability or perhaps unwillingness to see through cherrypicking. When the conservatives push to censor the Internet, they always bring up child pornography. When SJWs want to censor the Internet, they always bring up racism and sexism. It's the oldest trick in the book.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @01:30PM
Having an AI decide for you is the exact opposite of putting the responsibility into anyone but Google themselves, which is the worst aspect of this story. But the main point is that Google intends to censor statements that wouldn't be considered abusive to a sensible adult
What is and is not a "sensible adult" is subjective. However, even if the matter were completely objective, I say that we should keep all the "abusive" statements. I prefer websites that do not censor.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Friday February 24 2017, @01:38PM
TFS quote.
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Oh, you Mighty Able AC, would you bless us mere mortals and come with some evidence (e.g. references from TFA or something else still on the topic of Google's "Perspective") of other "cherries" that say otherwise.
Without them, I suspect you may have some specks of BS at the corners of your mouth, some paper tissues are usually effective in these cases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 24 2017, @05:02PM
Asked whether the site could result in censoring free speech, Cohen said that the software tool wasn’t intended to bypass human judgment, but to flag “low-hanging fruit” that could then be passed on to human moderators.
Right, and all the bills to censor child pornography have only been used to censor that and nothing else. If you are interested, I also have a bridge to sell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @04:42PM
> Right, and all the bills to censor child pornography have only been used to censor that and nothing else.
And Google technology is bills, right?
I'll grant it to you, based on the results, it is as stupid as whatever I'm seeing now coming from US political class.
But even if some stuff is stupid, does not make it a bill - take you by example.