Google To Counter Extremist Searches With Anti-Radicalisation Ads

Google search lets you search for all sorts of things on the internet, ranging from the humorous, to the educational, and sometimes to the dark, and scary. Sometimes people search for illegal things, like maybe how they can sneak over and join ISIS. Unfortunately such information is freely available out there, but Google has a plan to counter it.

According to a report from The Guardian, it seems that Google has a plan to counter extremist searches from its website, and this will be done by running anti-radicalisation ads. This means that if you were to search for information on how to join terrorist groups, you will also be greeted with videos and information that will attempt to dissuade you.

Anthony House, senior manager for public policy and communications at Google said,  “We should get the bad stuff down, but it’s also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm.” He also revealed that this year, Google will be running two pilot programmes for these anti-radicalisation ads.

“This year…. we are running two pilot programmes. One is to make sure that these types of videos are more discoverable on YouTube. The other one is to make sure when people put potentially damaging search terms into our search engine.. they also find this counter narrative.” Will this method be effective? We suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Web
Tags: Google