Facebook building huge database of extremists’ HORRIFIC posts
Internet giant wants to to build up an archive of hateful material to help it quickly censor violent or offensive content
FACEBOOK is set to work with Microsoft, Twitter and Youtube to combat the spread of extremism online by creating a database of deleted posts.
The database will be made up of “hashes” - unique digital fingerprints assigned to videos or photos by the companies.
It will allow the networks to see what content has been removed from their websites to enable their peers to identify the same content on their platforms.
Facebook said that the companies would work together to "help curb the spread of terrorist content online" by pooling deleted content into a single database that would enable extreme posts - including terror group recruitment videos - to be more quickly identified across different platforms and removed.
In a blog post announcing the collaboration, the social network said the "shared industry database" would consist of content that was each given a 'hash' or unique digital fingerprint that would help the various sites better and more quickly identify potentially extremist content on their platforms.
"Our companies will begin sharing hashes of the most extreme and egregious terrorist images and videos we have removed from our services - content most likely to violate all of our respective companies' content policies," the post said.
"Participating companies can add hashes of terrorist images or videos that are identified on one of our platforms to the database. Other participating companies can then use those hashes to identify such content on their services, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove matching content as appropriate."
Social media and tech companies have garnered considerable criticism for not cooperating more with governments in order to combat the rise of online extremism.
Between February and August of this year, twitter suspended 235,000 accounts for spreading alleged extremist content.
The database will be up and running in early 2017 and more companies could be brought into the partnership.
The firms have insisted that the privacy of existing users will not be affected.
"No personally identifiable information will be shared, and matching content will not be automatically removed," the firms said.
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"Each company will continue to apply its own policies and definitions of terrorist content when deciding whether to remove content when a match to a shared hash is found.
"Throughout this collaboration, we are committed to protecting our users' privacy and their ability to express themselves freely and safely on our platforms.
"We also seek to engage with the wider community of interested stakeholders in a transparent, thoughtful and responsible way as we further our shared objective to prevent the spread of terrorist content online while respecting human rights."
Social media and tech companies have garnered considerable criticism for not cooperating more with governments in order to combat the rise of online extremism.
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