Within the last two months UK has been unfortunately exposed to three terrorist attacks that will forever remain in the hearts of those who have been affected. Whilst the Government is going above and beyond to keep our country safe, online conglomerates are evaluating their policies, and practises to try and put a stop to online terrorism.

Google recently revealed that they are coming up with a new four step strategy to combat online terrorism. The pledge came via a blog post from Kent Walker who is on Google’s General Counsel for all things Legal & Corporate Governance. Before disclosing the additional four steps, Walker reiterated the measures that the company currently has in place to prevent the distribution and redistribution of terrorist material. These measuresrange from thousands of employees proof checking viable content, to the technologies in place to detect and prevent the upload and re load of terrorist material, to working alongside the Government and law-enforcement.

STEP 1

Where we are entering a new era of digital technology, part of Google’s first step is to improve their identification software. This would mean more resources would need to be devoted to advancing their machine learning. The software will be able to automatically identify inappropriate video content and will be able to clearly distinguish propaganda and the glorification of terrorist acts, from general journalistic news content.

STEP 2

Google claims that over 90% of its flagged content derives from independent experts which is reputable and accurate. It plans to increase the amount of trusted flaggers on YouTube which will efficiently double the amount of Non-Government Organizations that already operate on their behalf, and they will be able to offer operational grants to help them to continue their services.

STEP 3

Google will be taking a tougher stand on YouTube video content that is marginallyclose to violating their policies. Videos that find themselves sitting on the fence of infringing their policies won’t be allowed a comments section, and won’t be recommended or allowed to be used for monetisation.

STEP 4

YouTube will be strengthening its efforts to use the “Redirect Method”, which redirects targeted Isis recruitment advertisements to anti-terrorist videos, which has proven to have been really successful in the past.

Hopefully with these steps in place Google will continue to stand with the many organisations, which are trying to put an end to online terrorism.

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