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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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:50AM
The more they use it, the more people will be motivated to find ways around it.
Instead of using it to censor, they should use it speak back. Post a well known bigot trope, it will automatically post a previously written high-quality rebuttal to that standard trope. 99% of the things bigots say are cookie-cutter echo-chamber crap. After seeing the same shit over and over again no sane person even wants to engage any more. William F Buckley said it well, "Never debate with an amateur, they'll kill you every time. An amateur would just shout and say anything, and it makes rational argument impossible." So automate the responses and save yourself the stress.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:18AM
That may be what Schmidt means when he writes "we should [...] help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice."
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:52AM
Fuck off, Jew. Jews are assholes, and non-Jews merely tolerate, but do not like, them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:28AM
See? Who even has the energy to bother engaging with you anymore?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @07:51AM
OMG, who has all the time to feed these trolls?! [hands busy shoving food into trolls mouth]
The question was rhetorical right ;)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:15PM
Crap, who left the Turkey Farm gate open this time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:17PM
Ethanol-fueled secretly votes Democrat.
_Racist_Troll_
(Score: 4, Interesting) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:42AM
I'd expect their advertisement-frameworks should be well-suited for that, anyway. Instead of producing fertilizer- and weapons-adds along such posts they could just generate some links to educational sites with rebuttals to typical hate-claims.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum