YouTube has begun redirecting online
searches for violent extremist content and ISIS recruitment propaganda
to other anti-terrorist videos.
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| YouTube |
This follows an initiative, announced a month ago by the video-sharing site and parent Google, to combat online extremism content using an array of techniques.
This
strategy, developed with Jigsaw, an incubator company within Google and
YouTube's parent company Alphabet, and London-based anti-extremist tech
firm Moonshot CVE, basically sends YouTube requests for certain
keywords tied to violent extremism to a playlist of videos "debunking
violent extremist recruiting narratives," the companies said in an online post Thursday.
Extremist
groups including ISIS use video on YouTube to recruit and radicalize
prospective terrorists. This redirect method aims to deter such
movements to drive "people away from violent extremist propaganda and
steer them toward video content that confronts extremist messages and
debunks its mythology," the companies say in the post.
Online extremism has plagued online outlets including Google and YouTube. Earlier this year, many advertisers began pulling their business
from YouTube after discovering their ads played on videos promoting
terrorism and extremist content. Subsequently, YouTube established a 10,000-viewer requirement for its creators to earn revenue on their videos.
Three
months later, extremist content on YouTube became an issue again when
it was revealed one of the three attackers in the London Bridge terror
incident June 3 had been influenced by extremist videos on YouTube.
After
that, Google and YouTube said it was not only developing technology to
thwart extremist content, but also adding more human experts to spot
troublesome videos. The companies also said they had joined Facebook,
Microsoft and Twitter, in establishing an international online terrorism forum.
