North America’s tech giants are teaming up to fight extremism online

At an event called the ‘Christchurch Call to Action,’ Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter pledged to help fight against online violent extremism.

The companies outlined a nine-point plan to help fight hate and extremism online.

The nine points are broken up into two sections. Five points each company must do on its own and the other four points companies can do by working together.

The five individual points:

1. The companies will update their terms of use and other policies and guidelines to expressly prohibit the distribution of terrorist and violent extremist content.
2. Make it easier for people to report terrorist and violent extremist content.
3. Develop technologies that can detect hate and other inappropriate content online automatically.
4. Create a better system to determine if live-streamed content is appropriate and isn’t disseminating terrorist-related content.
5. Working on ways to make reports more transparent.

The four collaborative points include:

1. The technology companies have agreed to work together to develop a shared understanding of what consists of terrorist and violent extremist content and how to improve the technology that detects and removes terrorist and violent extremist content more efficiently.
2. Implement crisis protocols so that relevant information can be shared quickly and then acted on by all the companies with minimal delay.
3. The companies are also going to work to educate the public about extremist and terrorist content online, and what to do if they come across some.
4. Finally, the companies are pledging to fight against hate and bigotry by supporting research and supporting non-government organizations who are also fighting against this.

These points are meant to prevent the live streaming of extremist events, such as what happened with the terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Source: Facebook