As governments around the world face the ongoing threat of extremism, US ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says tech companies have a social "responsibility" to take better care of what appears on their platforms.
And he says companies should go as far as filtering their feeds and opening encryption access.
Speaking today at the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia, the head of the US intelligence community during the Obama administration said the issue was controversial, but Silicon Valley needed to play ball on national security.
"I do think there is a role to play here in some screening and filtering of what appears in social media," he said.
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Former US Spy Chief Calls for 'Filtering' of Social Media
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(Score: 2) by Sulla on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:00AM (3 children)
While people in government will continue to have this opinion, I am glad at least that he is gone.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:37PM (2 children)
i wish that stupid fucker was "gone" gone!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:51PM (1 child)
I for one think it is a crying shame that he is gone. He wanted encryption that is more open. For the good of us all.
I was hoping to capitalize on this shiny new (patented) encryption I wanted to sell him and get get mandated. I call it ROT26. It's twice as good as ROT13. Yes, really! I promise. And believe, me, I know my encryption. This uses the latest technology employing a privately public no-key deep in its algorithmic design. The precise details are proprietary of course.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:41PM
Pfff, I encrypt all my bytes with MOD256
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:20AM (3 children)
So: he calls for private companies to practice censorship, undoubtedly relying on the loving guidance of the government to decide exactly which viewpoints are allowed. And: he calls (yet again, this is getting tiresome) for backdoors into encryption, because you can trust your loving government.
Governments are not trustworthy. Governments are made up of people: some good, some bad, some just getting through the day. We can trust a government exactly as much as we trust any other random group of strangers. Certainly, I don't care to have some random group of strangers deciding what is right-think and what is wrong-think, and I surely don't care to give them access to my encrypted, private information.
The question is: are people like him (and Theresa May, and all the rest) - are they really just naive? Or are they actively malicious, knowing full well that governments will abuse these powers?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:17AM (1 child)
in their shoes, I think I'd want the same thing.
they think their job is to control everyone.
right now, I think the job of the government should be to implement/facilitate self-guidance of populations (i.e. help the police by giving them money, not by writing laws that they ask for).
but if I were asked to solve the terrorism problem? I don't know. it really is simpler to overreact.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:00AM
Just relocate in Greece [wikipedia.org]. Millions of Syrian refugee transited the Balkans, yet no a single terrorist attack.
For that matter, neither had Italy experienced one, in spite of some predictions [alarabiya.net].
One may start to wonder why? You know, just for a change in the line of thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:07AM
The question is: are people like him (and Theresa May, and all the rest) - are they really just naive? Or are they actively malicious, knowing full well that governments will abuse these powers?
The answer is: they really are naive AND they are actively malicious, knowing full well that they will abuse these powers. Chances are they are incompetent as well.
But if you define in law that the previous illegal acts are now legal (sometimes retrospectively in Mays case) then its no longer abuse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:59AM (16 children)
There's something interesting about censorship. Let's take ISIS. It's common sense that they need to be filtered out of society, hidden, not given a platform. Right? That treatment, I think, mystifies and strengthens their image to those that might already be susceptible. Let's imagine they did have a platform, but it was on a stage that had no censorship except so much as necessary to prevent bots/spam and the like. An outlet with absurdly conservative views and the complete inability to take a joke? It's like a collective wetdream for 'the internet.' They would be turned into a complete joke in no time. The censorship in many ways arguably makes them stronger. And they, in turn, of course also have the tools available for censorship. The thing people seem to forget is that the internet is no longer a unidirectional flow of information. If we were living in the 80s then I'd agree ISIS having their own television channel would be disastrous. But in social media, people get to speak back - and stupidity can be revealed as stupidity.
In any case, censorship is a losing fight. The general trend seems to be an increasing push for decentralization in all things, including the internet. At that point there is 0 control. So managing to deal with undesirable views in a means other than censorship is simply something that's going to have to be done. And the later that effort starts, the more difficult it's going to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:17AM (10 children)
What about the fact that ISIS uses stolen goods? When they decapitate someone, the video is basically a snuff movie that is being used to incite more such behavior. These videos are legally are the possession of the deceased's estate.
Acting on the behalf of innocents decapitated, Governments can and must sniff out such videos and bring those distributing them to justice - DMCA style!
Yes, its possible to build AI that sniffs out such videos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:28AM (6 children)
How is censorship justice at all? What about videos showing actual warfare? If someone dies in those, does that too automatically become the property of the deceased's estate? And why should we censor the truth and hide what these people are doing? I certainly don't want governments doing censorship of this kind.
DMCA-style censorship (censor first, ask questions later) is terribly unjust and you're not helping your case by bringing it up, I think.
Considering that most such AI systems have high false positive rates, companies don't seem to be very good at this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:30AM (5 children)
Yes. Intent matters in law. Just as kiddie porn is not a 'medical documentary', so too 'War documentaries' that glorify murder and degenerate into snuff films are called simply 'snuff films'.
You want these videos shown, but also want the state to close its eyes and ears. Why?
And false positives? Youre complaining about false positives? Each #true# positive will provide the IP of a murderer or murderer wannabe engaging in trafficking stolen goods. Just that (plus international cooperation) is reason enough to do this.
Dont know what you think but the primary purpose of a state is to #protect# the innocent and the weak. Not 'resist all forms of censorship'.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:48AM (1 child)
It is the purpose of the citizens to resist all forms of censorship, not the government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:13PM
It is not.
Make a torture/snuff film featuring you or someone you love, and that 'duty' evaporates. You'd want it used to bring people to justice. Not as a recruiting tool.
Same deal with child porn.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:07AM (2 children)
Yes, I do think that punishing completely innocent people is a bad thing.
That's over-the-top and laughable.
The primary purpose of a state is to protect its citizens' rights. Violating fundamental rights like freedom of speech makes the situation worse, not better. It's especially bad for the government - which is supposed to protect our rights - to become the enemy of our liberties.
Censoring videos wouldn't do anything to protect anyone's rights, anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:30PM (1 child)
We do this for child pornography. What makes purveyors of murder and torture porn so special?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @05:28AM
I don't think we should censor child pornography either. The first amendment does not permit any government censorship; our courts often simply do not follow the Constitution. You've been completely shut out and our goals are irreconcilable, authoritarian.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:28AM (1 child)
The videos have no value in and of themselves. Their value is in the attached messaging. For instance in America show most people a video of somebody tied down and murdered by injecting him with poisons and they'd be repulsed and angry. Then tell them he murdered a few people himself and about half of our country is suddenly okay with the video even if probably a bit bothered by its contents. These videos from organizations like ISIS are disgusting to most of anybody. But what happen is its given along with a context of jihad, Koranic verses supporting the action, and demonization of the 'enemy.' All that messaging goes completely unopposed until it's finally left on torrent sites and extremists sites - both places where it again has no context other than that from extremists. How is this good?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:47AM
You are not the judge of that.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:26PM
Buddy, if you could harness whatever that slope is covered in you would put the lubricator industry out of business.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @08:20AM
Ugh! Mah, impregnating your nympho rectum sure was hard work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:58PM (2 children)
Yet Americans voted in a president that had no business even being in politics. How is it you think internet ridicule would stop ISIS/terrorism?
(Score: 2) by http on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:44PM
Americans voted for someone who has no business being in business.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:06PM
Actually I think that is a great example.
In a world without the internet, Trump would never have won. Obviously you may not like him, but he is a product of a strong anti-establishment sentiment that's been growing in the US for many years now - on both sides of the aisle. But without the bidirectional communication enabled by the internet, outsiders never stood a chance. The media destroys them and underplays their support. People, in turn, begin to feel like maybe not that many other people like them either and so end up voting against their preferred candidate for the sake of the 'least unpreferred candidate that is electable.' It's something we've seen play out time and again on both sides. That is a product of unidirectional messaging. It is capable of misleading people and having them do things they otherwise would not.
If the DNC hadn't been so heavily manipulated, we'd have had an election between Sanders and Trump - two people who just a decade ago would have likely struggled to get 10% of the vote. This is the big difference in bidirectional vs unidirectional messaging. Clinton is a product of a time gone past when saying all the right things to select groups (even when said things contradict one another), giving all heavily focus tested answers (my favorite book is the bible!), and then finally capping it off with some dirt about your opponent from a decade ago. Remember John Kerry and the 'Swiftboat Veterans of America'? Idiotic stuff, but it worked. That is the power of undirectional messaging and what groups in power have typically been able to rely upon.
Hillary announced her running on Twitter. That's evidence she understood, or was told, that times had changed. Yet she ran her campaign like it was ten years ago. Blame a corrupt DNC. Blame an out of touch politician running an idiotic campaign. But Trump did not 'win' this election, she lost it. Even as the voting population increased by millions Hillary managed to get fewer votes than Obama did for his second term election. That's just simply quite pathetic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:21PM
Which means that the Security State will need even more money to fight terrorism... Is the penny dropping yet?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:04AM (4 children)
One of our best arguments against terrorism is that we live in a free society. If you censor the internet, the terrorists can claim that we don't have freedom.
Don't give them arguments against our way of life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:08AM (3 children)
"The terrorists" care more about imperialism and Israel than debating about our free speech limits and slutty clothes.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:22AM
Yes, but they use these kinds of arguments to lure in new gullible people from our own society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:13PM
That's commonly stated, but I think unrealistic. They have been killing themselves for centuries over a disagreement about a succession in Islamic leadership 1,400 years old.
If a disagreement over a nuance of Islam is enough to be considered an infidel worthy of death - well, I think their depth of disagreement with us is a bit more fundamental than our military and values. And in any case a fair amount of the terrorists are homegrown second generation citizens. That's not a Syrian or an Iraqi with a grudge, but somebody who lived their entire life in the west yet nonetheless felt their religion dictated the death of the people they grew up alongside.
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:45PM
Nevertheless, don't destroy freedom in the name of it.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:07AM
2017 - when national security is a political ball play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by leftover on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:39PM
Someone should write a song for that title!
Really, anyone who has spent significant time in the intelligence machinery leadership should probably be retired to a nice quiet place in the country and kept out of public view. They are among the very least appropriately qualified group to be determining how civilization should function. After spending decades in paranoia and artificial, contrived "communities" they have no idea what the 'normal' wold is like. They are contemptuous of everyone else, perhaps as an emotional self-defense mechanism.
Many of the analysts, on the other hand, are particularly insightful and informed. Their input is valuable.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:57PM
That's how real men filter social media.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @01:23AM
So says the disgraced, liar- o congress. This definitely can't be used against political enemies...