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TECHNOLOGY Wednesday 7 June 2017

Q&A: Internet extremism and how to combat it

DEE-ANN DURBIN en it in ways that hack-
AP Business Writer ers, criminals and foreign
DETROIT (AP) — In the wake agents could exploit. That
of Britain’s third major at- could potentially jeopar-
tack in three months, Prime dize all sorts of vital data,
Minister Theresa May called from personal communi-
on governments to form in- cations and documents
ternational agreements to to bank accounts, credit
prevent the spread of ex- card transactions, medical
tremism online. history and other informa-
Here’s a look at extrem- tion that people want to
ism on the web, what’s keep private.
being done to stop it and But Erik Gordon, a professor
what could come next. of law and business at the
Q. What are technology University of Michigan, says
companies doing to make society has sometimes de-
sure extremist videos and termined that the govern-
other terrorist content ment can intrude in ways
doesn’t spread across it might not normally, as in
the internet? times of war.
A. Internet companies use He says laws may even-
technology plus teams of tually be passed requir-
human reviewers to flag ing companies to share
and remove posts from encrypted data if police
people who engage in ex- Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London, after chairing obtain a warrant from a
tremist activity or express a meeting of the Government’s emergency Cobra committee following Saturday night’s terrorist judge.
support for terrorism. incident in London. Several people were killed in the terror attack at the heart of London and doz- “If we get to the point
Google, for example, says ens injured. The prime minister called for a tougher stance at home against extremists. where we say, ‘Privacy is
it employs thousands of Associated Press not as important as stay-
people to fight abuse on ing alive,’ I think there will
its platforms. Google’s ed a total of 376,890 ac- even the companies can’t the government so-called be some setup which will
YouTube service removes counts for violations relat- read them. Governments “backdoor” access to en- allow the government to
any video that has hateful ed to the promotion of ex- are not happy about that. crypted data so that inves- breach privacy,” he said.
content or incites violence, tremism. Three-quarters of After the 2015 mass shoot- tigators could read mes- Q. Is it really the tech com-
and its software prevents those were found through ing in San Bernardino, sages on these services. panies’ job to police the in-
the video from ever being Twitter’s internal tools; just 2 California, and again after Q. Shouldn’t tech com- ternet and remove con-
reposted. YouTube says it percent were taken down the Westminster Bridge at- panies be forced to share tent?
removed 92 million videos because of government re- tack, the U.S. and U.K. gov- encrypted information if it A. Tech companies have
in 2015; 1 percent were re- quests, the company says. ernments sought access could protect national se- accepted that this is part
moved for terrorism or hate Facebook says it alerts law to encrypted messages curity? of their mission. In a Face-
speech violations. enforcement if it sees a exchanged by extrem- A. Weakening encryp- book post earlier this year,
Facebook, Microsoft, threat of an imminent at- ists who carried out the tion won’t make people CEO Mark Zuckerberg said
Google and Twitter tack or harm to someone. It attacks. Apple and Face- safer, says Richard Forno, the company was devel-
teamed up late last year also seeks out potential ex- book’s WhatsApp refused, who directs the graduate oping artificial intelligence
to create a shared industry tremist accounts by tracing noting that they didn’t hold cybersecurity program at so its computers can tell
database of unique digi- the “friends” of an account the keys needed to un- the University of Maryland, the difference between
tal fingerprints for images that has been removed for scramble such messages. Baltimore County. Terrorists news stories about terrorism
and videos that are pro- terrorism. Both governments even- will simply take their com- and terrorist propaganda.
duced by or support ex- Q. Why are technology tually found other ways to munications deeper un- “This is technically difficult
tremist organizations. companies clashing with get the information they derground by developing as it requires building AI
Those fingerprints help the governments over extrem- wanted. their own cyber channels that can read and under-
companies identify and ist communications? Some in government — in- or even reverting to paper stand news, but we need
remove extremist content. A. Since Edward Snowden’s cluding former FBI Director notes sent by couriers, he to work on this to help fight
After the attack on West- 2013 disclosures about James Comey and Demo- said. terrorism worldwide,” Zuck-
minster Bridge in London National Security Agency cratic Sen. Dianne Fein- “It’s playing whack-a- erberg said.
in March, tech companies surveillance, several tech stein of California — have mole,” he said. “The bad But Gordon says inter-
also agreed to form a joint companies have started argued that the inability guys are not constrained net companies may not
group to accelerate anti- encrypting — that is, scram- to access encrypted data by the law. That’s why go far enough, since they
terrorism efforts. bling them to thwart spies is a threat to security. Fein- they’re bad guys.” need users in order to sell
Twitter says in the last six — instant messages and stein has introduced a bill Building backdoors into en- ads. “Think of the hateful
months of 2016, it suspend- other data so tightly that to force companies to give cryption could also weak- stuff that is said. q