A new study released on last week shows that terrorist groups are active on Facebook and the social media company may be unwittingly generating terrorist content.
A five-month study by the National Whistleblowers Center analyzed the pages of 3,000 members that had connections to terrorist organizations, and found that ISIS and al-Qaeda are openly networking on the platform. It also found that Facebook is auto-generating content like “Memories” videos, and “Local Business” pages. One “Local Business” page for al-Qaeda had 7,410 likes, according to the research.
Facebook’s efforts to stamp out terror content have been weak and ineffectual,” an executive summary of the 48-page document said. Facebook told Agence France-Presse (AFP) it had been removing terror-linked content “at a far higher success rate than even two years go” since investing in better technology. The company advises that it is using machine learning to weed out terrorist content.
The whistleblower has filed a petition with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging that Facebook is likely breaking the law for misrepresenting shareholders and the public. Facebook has faced increased scrutiny for its role in online terror since a gunman live-streamed 17 minutes of a New Zealand mosque shooting on the social media platform.
Several countries have taken steps to regulate online content since the attack. In early April, Australia passed legislation setting out fines and punishment for social media sites for hate content, and the U.K has proposed making social media executives personally responsible for harmful content shared on their platforms.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron will host a meeting in Paris next month seeking to eliminate acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown online. They will ask world leaders and chief executives of technology companies to agree to a pledge called the “Christchurch Call,” named after the New Zealand city where an attack took place last month.
Ardern has been talking with representatives from companies including Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google along with world leaders and believed they could reach consensus by keeping the pledge tightly focused.
This isn’t about freedom of speech. It’s specifically focused on eradicating those extreme acts of terrorism online. The man accused of murdering 50 people in two Christchurch mosques on March 15 livestreamed the attack that showed the murder of 50 people on Facebook after mounting a camera on his helmet. The chilling 17-minute video was copied and viewed widely on the internet even as tech companies scrambled to remove it.
The shooter had used social media in an unprecedented way to promote an act of terrorism and hate. No tech company, just like no government, can condone violent extremism and terrorism online so everyone should be on the same page. Just last month, Facebook founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called for governments and regulators to play a more active role from in policing the internet. He also said it was impossible to remove all harmful content from the internet.
It sounds like a promising start.
Terrorists hijacked a planeload of lawyers and they’ve threatened to start releasing them one by one until their demands are met