Youtube removes more terrorist videos – it’s not enough says Govt

Google has said computers are better than humans at finding and removing extremist videos from Youtube.

Since June the company, which owns Youtube, has been using machine learning, as well as humans, to spot content that should be taken down. This is a type of artificial intelligence that learns how to recognise common elements in content, such as types of photo and video, without human help.

In a blog post ( www.snipca. com/25176) the company said: “While these tools aren’t perfect, and aren’t right for every setting, in many cases our systems have proven more accurate than humans at flagging videos that need to be removed”.

It added that the introduction of machine learning “has more than doubled both the number of videos we’ve removed for violent extremism, as well as the rate at which we’ve taken this kind of content down”.

Google claimed that over 75 per cent of videos removed in the past month were never looked at by a human.

But the Government told Google, along with Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter, that it must do more to prevent extremism spreading online.

In a speech to top figures in Silicon Valley, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said terrorists continue to use the internet to “weaponise vulnerable people in their homes”.

Home Office officials say that Islamic State (ISIS) had recently reminded its supporters of the “importance” of spreading propaganda online.

Mrs Rudd was attending the first meeting of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, set up by tech firms to tackle extremist content on their sites.

She met the companies to argue for a ‘backdoor’ into apps that would allow the authorities to read encrypted messages sent by terrorists.

Such a measure would face a backlash from security experts, who claim it would threaten the privacy of users.