{"id":380491,"date":"2017-12-06T07:15:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T07:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=380491"},"modified":"2017-12-06T07:15:11","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T07:15:11","slug":"google-pledges-10000-staff-tackle-extremist-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=380491","title":{"rendered":"Google pledges 10,000 staff to tackle extremist content"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Google will dedicate more than 10,000 staff to rooting out violent extremist content on YouTube in 2018, the video sharing website&#8217;s chief has said.<\/p>\n<p>Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Susan Wojcicki said some users were exploiting YouTube to &#8220;mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>She said the website, owned by Google, had used &#8220;computer-learning&#8221; technology that could find extremist videos.<\/p>\n<p>More than 150,000 of these videos have been removed since June, she said.<\/p>\n<p>In March, the UK government suspended its adverts from YouTube, following concerns they were appearing next to inappropriate content.<\/p>\n<p>And in a speech at the United Nations general assembly in September, UK Prime Minister Theresa May challenged tech firms to take down terrorist material in two hours.<\/p>\n<p>The prime minister has repeatedly called for an end to the &#8220;safe spaces&#8221; she says terrorists enjoy online.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Wojcicki said that staff had reviewed nearly two million videos for violent extremist content since June.<\/p>\n<p>This is helping to train the company&#8217;s machine learning technology to identify similar videos, which is enabling staff to remove nearly five times as many videos as they were previously, she said.<\/p>\n<p>She said the company was taking &#8220;aggressive action&#8221; on comments, using technology to help staff find and shut down hundreds of accounts and hundreds of thousands of comments.<\/p>\n<p>And its teams &#8220;work closely with child safety organisations around the world to report predatory behaviour and accounts to the correct law enforcement agencies&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, police in the UK have warned that\u00a0sex offenders are increasingly using live online streaming platforms\u00a0to exploit children.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, Google announced it would give a total of \u00a31m ($1.3m) to fund projects that help counter extremism in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>And, in June, YouTube announced four new steps it was taking to combat extremist content:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Improving its use of machine learning to remove controversial videos<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Working with 15 new expert groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Tougher treatment for videos that are not illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of its policies on hate speech and violent extremism<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Redirecting people who search for certain keywords towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Calum Chace, author of Surviving AI and The Economic Singularity, said that machine learning is developing fast.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People are often unduly cynical about the prospects for AI because they judge it by what is possible today,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They forget that our machines are on an exponential growth curve: they get twice as powerful every 18 months or so. This means that we are just at the beginning of their story.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Although YouTube&#8217;s automated systems are probably among the best in the world since it is a subsidiary of Google, they need human support. For now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google will dedicate more than 10,000 staff to rooting out violent extremist content on YouTube in 2018, the video sharing website&#8217;s chief has said. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Susan Wojcicki said some users were exploiting YouTube to &#8220;mislead, manipulate, harass or even harm&#8221;. She said the website, owned by Google, had used &#8220;computer-learning&#8221; technology [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":380492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[225,284],"class_list":["post-380491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-google","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/380492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}