Thanks to the internet and the rise of social media, we’re starting to see how extremist groups are leveraging the use of these technologies to spread their message to the masses. While companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Google have introduced a variety of tools to help combat the situation, the UK government seems to think it’s not good enough.So much so that the Home Office has actually developed their own artificial intelligence (AI) to help detect extremist videos. In fact it seems that whatever they’ve developed is pretty successful and good at what it does, and is boasting a 99.99% success rate. How it works is also pretty important because instead of platforms reacting after videos have been uploaded, the AI actually analyzes the video’s content while it is being uploaded, and prevents it from even being uploaded in the first place.
This means that it will never reach the internet in the first place, which by then is usually too late as sometimes videos are saved and copies are made, even after the original has been taken down. This is versus the 36 hours or so which is apparently the average time it takes for tech firms to remove such content, which by then would have easily spread to hundreds, if not thousands of viewers.
Speaking to the BBC, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said that she hasn’t ruled out the possibility of forcing tech companies to use their technology. “We’re not going to rule out taking legislative action if we need to do it, but I remain convinced that the best way to take real action, to have the best outcomes, is to have an industry-led forum like the one we’ve got. This has to be in conjunction, though, of larger companies working with smaller companies.”
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