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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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @02:42AM (1 child)
Not that you should be using these frequently online mind you, but there are plenty of well known sources where; if you know the source; you know not to take it too seriously. Like quite a few posts on this site.
I've seen an extraordinary amount of chilled speech creep into the Internet since it began. You used to see the nazi's invade forums all the time. They were mostly just funny due to how illiterate they were. That all changed when trolling became a paying job. That's whenit went from a hobby to a national sport, complete with masters-degree-holding psychoanalysts fucking with peoples heads en-mass using sophisticated software. And those guys are WAY more scary than the Nazis.
The OP has it wrong. You shouldn't be using AI to detect hate speech. You should be using AI to detect baseless persuasion of all kinds. The difference between a punk kid wannabe nazi, and a real disaster-waiting-to-happen politically persuasive fascist, is the funding. And that funding has been seeing exponential growth for years. Both brands of the uniparty are filled to the brim with it.
I'm less concerned by an 18 year old banger, than I am with guys like Ajit Pai. The bangers are easy to spot. Pai is just a few steps away from becoming an American Goebles, and his knucklehead antics defuse people from realizing what he is. Which is a facilitator of a new American fascism. A kind where you don't notice your rights have been rescinded, until you unplug from the MSM for a few days and the fences start to come into focus.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Thursday January 02 2020, @06:26PM
I think these belong here:
https://archive.is/Hy6ZJ [archive.is]
https://archive.is/iOckl [archive.is]
https://archive.ph/EdHYz [archive.ph]
https://archive.is/rWnr8 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/YkJr8 [archive.is]
https://archive.is/SDcbq [archive.is]
https://archive.ph/cPx5h [archive.ph]