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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the false-positives dept.

University of Cambridge researchers are hoping to launch technology that blocks online "hate speech" similar to how an antivirus program stops malicious code.

Thanks to researchers at the University of Cambridge, the largest social media companies in the world may soon have the ability to preemptively quarantine content classified by an algorithm as "hate speech"." On October 14, 2019, researcher Stephanie Ullmann and professor Marcus Tomalin published a proposal in the Ethics and Information Technology journal promoting an invention that they claim could accomplish this goal without infringing on individual rights of free speech. Their proposal involves software that uses an algorithm to identify "hate speech" in much the same way an antivirus program detects malware. It would then be up to the viewer of such content to either leave it in quarantine or view it.

The basic premise is that online "hate speech" is as harmful in its way as other forms of harm (physical, emotional, financial...), and social media companies should intercept it before it can do that harm, rather than post-facto by review.

Tomalin's proposal would use a sophisticated algorithm which would evaluate not just the content itself, but also all content posted by the user to determine if a post might be classifiable as "hate speech". If not classified as potential "hate speech", the post occupies the social media feed like any regular post. If the algorithm flags it as possible "hate speech", it will then flag the post as potential hate speech, making it so that readers must opt-in to view the post. A graph from the proposal illustrates this process.

The alert to the reader will identify the type of "hate speech" potentially classified in the content as well as a "Hate O'Meter" to show how offensive the post is likely to be.

The goal of the researchers is to have a working prototype available in early 2020 and, assuming success and subsequent social media company adoptions, intercepting traffic in time for the 2020 elections.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:00AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @08:00AM (#938524)

    alt-right is losing its sting as an epithet.

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:42PM (6 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:42PM (#938575) Homepage Journal

    It never had a sting unless you're part of, or at least the bitch of, the ctrl-left.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:38PM (1 child)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:38PM (#938698) Journal
      How about ctrl-alt-shift-left? After all, the moral majority could be labeled ctrl-alt-shift-right.
      --
      SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:59PM (3 children)

      by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday January 02 2020, @05:59PM (#938713) Journal

      Or, unless, when someone submits articles about the alt-right, you fear they may be painting you with too broad a brush. Tu Quoque, Buteo?

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 04 2020, @07:19AM (2 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday January 04 2020, @07:19AM (#939422) Homepage Journal

        I'm not part of anything on the right, ari. I'm what you should be well familiar with, since you remember when its root word came to be, as a liberal. That's the left as you well know; both socially and economically. What you schizophrenic authoritarians of today are doesn't fit on the standard scale.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday January 04 2020, @08:47AM (1 child)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday January 04 2020, @08:47AM (#939438) Journal

          Your lack of education is showing again, my less than Mightily Educated Buzzard. Do you know that "liberalism" is a doctrine dedicated to the maximum freedom for all individuals? Of course you do! Do you not also realize that any actions that infringe upon the freedom of some are an anathema to liberalism, of your classic sort? Thus, any fuchering neo-nazi, or alt-right loser, or your standard Republican of these times, is not a liberal, in the classical sense. They are something else, Racists, Classists, Midichlorian counters, or Rey supporters, but in no why liberals dedicated to the principal that all humans are created equal, and endowed with certain inalienable> rights, human rights, the rights of humans as humans, solely because they are humans.

          Now you, you half-breed Choctaw Chickasaw, should be aware of this more than others, that Republicans and Conservatives are dedicated to the proposition that not all humans are created equal, especially Native Americans like yourself. When did your people first get the right to vote as Americans? After Women, I believe, you should know your history, Buzzard, and not hide it in a closet white supremacist libertarian alt-right hole of asses. I am here for you, TMB! Stand up, be woke, find your spirit guide. Or do the "civilized" tribes no longer adhere to the traditions of their ancestors, and send their young (40~ish) programmers out on a spirit-walk?

          The familiar spirits, in my experience, are all Democrats. Something to do with Wounded Knee. Yes, not your tribe, but there, but for the varagies of history, go thee.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 04 2020, @09:21AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday January 04 2020, @09:21AM (#939440) Homepage Journal

            Do you know that "liberalism" is a doctrine dedicated to the maximum freedom for all individuals?

            That argument is nothing but retconing by modern progressives. Your contemporaries would have mocked you endlessly for suggesting liberty is obtained by surrendering it so that the state may grant you comfort or security wearing liberty's hat.

            Or do the "civilized" tribes no longer adhere to the traditions of their ancestors...

            Do you adhere to the traditions of yours? When's the last time you kept slaves? Should we expect a lecture on how it is the right and duty of the father to reject children if they are weak or women sometime soon? How long has it been since you sacrificed a bull to Zeus?

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.