Facebook plans to divert extremists, using military videos to identify terror attacks

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

Facebook has announced changes to the way it combats violent extremism online, including programmes to turn people away from hate groups in Australia and New Zealand. 

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said while some policy changes predate the March 15 terror attack in Christchurch, the event had 'strongly influenced' its direction since.

It is also using first-person military videos to train artificial intelligence to faster identify terror attacks like the live-streamed Christchurch massacre.

But one researcher says that, while it's good to be looking at ways to disrupt radicalisation, there are bigger changes to be made to the way social networks cause harm by exposing people to more and more radical content. 

**READ MORE:

* Jacinda Ardern's Christchurch Call: Algorithms remain in control, and secret

* Christchurch Call: Tech companies, 17 governments signpledge - but not the US

* Christchurch shooting demonstrates how social media is used to spread violence**

The mass shooting in two Christchurch mosques was designed to go viral, with the gunman live streaming the attack on Facebook. The video was viewed about 4000 times before Facebook removed it, but by then it had been saved and shared around the world.

Months later a three-page pledge dubbed the 'Christchurch call to action', presented by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at an international summit, called on governments and technology companies to work together to eliminate terrorist and extremist content online.

'[The attack] highlighted where we needed to improve detection and enforcement against violent extremist content,' Facebook said.

In March, in the United States, the platform rolled out a program diverting users searching for white supremacist content to Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups. Today, the company confirmed it's expanding the initiative to Australia, Indonesia, and hopefully New Zealand.

In Australia and Indonesia, when people search for terms associated with hate and extremism, they will be directed to EXIT Australia and ruangngobrol.id respectively; local organisations staffed by former extremists providing crisis intervention, education, support groups and outreach. 

'We'll continue to seek out partners in countries around the world where local experts are working to disengage vulnerable audiences from hate-based organisations.' The company is currently exploring potential collaborations in New Zealand. 

The work is being led by a 350-member multi-disciplinary team of safety and counterterrorism experts. Other updates include improving detection and enforcement of terrorist content, and sharing more information about efforts to combat hate, including metrics on regional terrorist organisations. 

'We know that bad actors will continue to attempt to skirt our detection with more sophisticated efforts and we are committed to advancing our work and sharing our progress.'

Law enforcement in the United States and United Kingdom will share footage of firearms officers in training with Facebook to help improve its automatic detection systems.

'The video of the attack in Christchurch did not prompt our automatic detection systems because we did not have enough content depicting first-person footage of violent events to effectively train our machine learning technology,' Facebook said. 'That's why we're working with government and law enforcement officials in the US and UK to obtain camera footage from their firearms training programs – providing a valuable source of data to train our systems.

'With this initiative, we aim to improve our detection of real-world, first-person footage of violent events and avoid incorrectly detecting other types of footage such as fictional content from movies or video games.'

Researcher and co-director of think tank The Workshop, Marianne Elliott, said she'd like to see governments and technology companies investing more in evaluating the effectiveness of 'redirect interventions'.

'These interventions are positive, but they shouldn't replace the bigger, more structural questions questions about what technology companies are doing about their algorithms.'

(Content on social media platforms is promoted based on an individual's online behaviour and recommendation algorithms. Unfortunately, those algorithms have learnt radical content promotes engagement.)

While applauded as a good first step, many criticised the Christchurch Call as vague and lacking in accountability. Within weeks, for example, Amazon-owned live streaming platform, Twitch, broadcast footage of the massacre for more than 30 minutes without consequence.

However, Ardern has said she will continue the country's leadership on the Christchurch Call by providing a stock take on progress made by countries, technology companies and civil society at the United Nations General Assembly next week.

On Wednesday, she said she welcomed the Facebook updates. 'These are the kinds of efforts the Christchurch Call was designed for as we try to eliminate the spread of terrorist and violent extremist content online.'