Follow
Google’s video platform took one more measure against all sorts of damaging cultures that spread extremist and terrorist messages. Instead of resorting to censorship and eliminating this type of content altogether, the company thought of a more proper solution, namely education. Every time a user will search for a certain violent terrorist content, the used keywords will trigger a redirection to different results that discredit such aggressive narratives.
Terrorist Content Employs Propaganda to Attract Vulnerable People as New Members
On Thursday, YouTube launched the Redirect Method effective immediately. The goal of this campaign is to educate any online user who feels isolated and views terrorist groups as communities he or she can join.
In such cases, people are usually spending hours of their time watching so-called informative videos about such groups. However, almost all such material available on the platform is propaganda created with the purpose to radicalize and convert users through violent recruiting messages. However, watching educational content instead can help them discover the risks they expose themselves to by falling for extremist rhetoric.
YouTube’s Combative Strategy Is Redirection to Educational, Curated Videos
Alphabet’s Jigsaw together with Moonshot CVE worked on this project as a method to use technology as a protective layer against global threats. At the basis of the Redirect Method stands a list of keywords and phrases. If any search query includes one or several such notions, the platform will automatically display curated videos. Each of these materials has facts by its side to debunk the messages that terrorist content use to gain members by their side.
YouTube is confident in the influence of its campaign as the company ran beta test previously. During this process, there were around 320,000 users who activated the Redirect Method. They watched a total of half a million minutes of the 116 videos YouTube chose as part of their mission to limit the influence of such damaging cultures.
Now that the project is active, YouTube will work alongside on empowering such efforts with additions such as educational material in other languages. On top of that, machine learning will continue to update the list of keywords or phrases that users in vulnerable states can use.
Image source: 1
