Are you a terrorist? Well, deal with the consortium of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube then! Some of the tech world’s biggest firms have gotten together and formed a group that aims to reduce the accessibility of terrorist groups and hinder their ability to browse the Internet. This attempt is part of an ongoing corporate effort to limit terrorism, and its Internet access.
The four tech behemoths will share content classification techniques including ways for the user to effectively report such content and will also contribute to both technical and policy research. These companies have collaborated in the past as well, such as when they announced the creation of a shared industry hash database in December, last year.
The process of sharing hashes enabled these firms to effectively identify terror accounts minus much of the legwork. This new group meanwhile, will also contribute to further improving the hash sharing service. Facebook, Microsoft, YouTube and Twitter will also be teaching smaller companies methods to safeguard themselves and prevent from becoming a tool for terror.
This will involve the management receiving training and counterspeech programs like YouTube’s Creators for Change. All of these efforts meanwhile, will occur with the blessings and knowledge of the G7 and other nations, which have been particularly worried about curbing terrorist recruitment and funding — a large portion of both of which take place online.
This partnership will make it harder for terrorist organizations to find ways to influence people. With a major portion of their funding and recruitment cut of, it will be that much easier for the government to destroy them.
