Europe may shape tech giants’ future

Other countries are more aggressive against hate speech, fabricated news

LONDON - Silicon Valley is a uniquely American creation, the product of an entrepreneurial spirit and no-holds-barred capitalism that now drives many aspects of modern life.

But the likes of Facebook, Google and Apple are increasingly facing an uncomfortable truth: It is Europe’s culture of tougher oversight of companies, not America’s laissez-faire attitude, which could soon rule their industry as governments seek to combat fake news and prevent extremists from using the internet to fan the flames of hatred.

While the U.S. has largely relied on market forces to regulate content in a country where free speech is revered, European officials have shown they are willing to act. Germany recently passed a law imposing fines of up to $59 million on websites that don’t remove hate speech within 24 hours. British Prime Minister Theresa May wants companies to take down extremist material within two hours. And across the EU, Google has for years been obliged to remove search results if there is a legitimate complaint about the content’s veracity or relevance.

“I anticipate the EU will be where many of these issues get played out,” said Sarah T. Roberts, a professor of information studies at UCLA who has studied efforts to monitor and vet internet content. Objectionable content “is the biggest problem going forward. It’s no longer acceptable for the firms to say that they can’t do anything about it.”

How closely to manage the massive amounts of content on the internet has become a pressing question in the U.S. since it was revealed that Russian agencies took out thousands of ads on social media during the presidential campaign, reaching 10 million people on Facebook alone.

That comes on top of the existing concerns about preventing extremist attacks. This month, three men were arrested after allegedly using smartphone messaging apps to plot attacks on the New York City subway and Times Square from their homes in Canada, Pakistan and the Philippines. The plot was thwarted by an undercover officer, not technology.

In some ways it goes to a question of identity. Social media companies see themselves not as publishers but as platforms for other people to share information, and have traditionally been cautious about taking down material.

But the pressure is on to act. Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube in June created the Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism, which says it is committed to developing new content detection technology, helping smaller companies combat extremism and promoting “counter-speech,” content meant to blunt the impact of extremist material.

Proponents of counter-speech argue that rather than trying to take down every Islamic State militant group post, internet companies and governments should do more to promote content that actively refutes extremist propaganda. This approach will unmask the extremist message of hate and violence in the “marketplace of ideas,” they argue, though critics see it as just another form of propaganda.

Facebook has recently published details of its counterterrorism strategy for the first time. These include using artificial intelligence to prevent extremist images and videos from being uploaded and algorithms to find and disable accounts linked to pages known to support extremist movements. The company also plans to increase the staff dedicated to reviewing complaints of objectionable material by more than 60 percent to some 8,000 worldwide.