YouTube to Start Redirecting Searches for Terrorist Content to Anti-Hate Videos

Youtube is rolling out a new feature that will hopefully prove effective in fighting terrorism online.

If anyone uses YouTube to look up search terms matching extremism, supremacy, or terrorist recruiting videos, the Redirect feature will automatically send them to a playlist of videos that debunk hateful narratives.

The Redirect feature was originally developed by Jigsaw in partnership with Moonshot CVE. YouTube officials declined to disclose what kind of terms are flagged for having hateful intent, but company representatives said that the feature is a part of a much larger body of research conducted on how terrorist organizations use technology and social media to push their agendas.

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In the coming months, YouTube plans on expanding the feature into different languages and creating new video content to combat extremism.

The enterprise is part of an ongoing alliance between major tech companies – such as Twitter, Microsoft, and Facebook – to address terrorism and extremism online. Last month, Google announced four other anti-terrorist initiatives it would be implementing.

For starters, the company has honed the classifying abilities of their analytics to better identify and remove extremist videos. Google has also recruited dozens of NGO experts who will be dedicating their expertise to improving the company’s anti-terrorist initiatives.

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For videos that do not directly violate their criteria for extremist content, Google will be penalizing them by removing monetization, commenting, endorsement, and recommendation features.

“Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all,” wrote Google’s general counsel Kent Walker. “Google and YouTube are committed to being part of the solution. We are working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle the problem of violent extremism online. There should be no place for terrorist content on our services.”

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