TECHNOLOGY

Google has ramped up efforts to tackle online terrorism with the introduction of four new steps to address the problem.

The internet giant acknowledged that the threat poses a serious challenge and more immediate action needs to be taken.

Google pledged four additional steps in the fight against online terrorism – better detection of extremist content and faster review, more experts, tougher standards, early intervention and expanding counter-extremism work.

Kent Walker, senior vicepresident and general counsel at Google, said: “Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all.

“Google and YouTube are committed to being part of the solution. We are working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle violent extremism online.

“There should be no place for terrorist content on our services. While we and others have worked for years to identify and remove content that violates our policies, the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done. Now.”

Google’s engineers have

“Addressing the threat posed by hate is a critical challenge for the industry”

developed technology to prevent re-uploads of known terrorist content using image-matching. The four steps are: Google will devote more engineering resources to apply its most advanced machine learning research to train new content classifiers to help identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content more quickly.

It will increase the number of independent experts in YouTube’s Trusted Flagger programme, expand this programme by adding 50 expert NGOs that it will support with grants, and expand its work with counter-extremist groups to help identify radical content.

The company will take a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate its policies. Videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements.

Google-owned YouTube will expand its role in counter-radicalisation efforts. Its approach targets online advertising to reach potential Islamic State recruits, and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining.

Mr Walker said: “Collectively, these changes will make a difference. And we’ll keep working on the problem until we get the balance right.”