Google releases free software for smaller websites to moderate terrorist content
Christopher Hutton
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Google has released new free software meant to give smaller companies tools to take down terrorist content as the search engine fends off pressure from European regulators.
Jigsaw, an entity within the Big Tech giant dedicated to cybersecurity and geopolitical issues, released the software in partnership with the UN-based Tech Against Terrorism initiative. The free software will help websites identify terrorist content, as identified by a Big Tech partnership, that is spread through comments and third-party links and alert human moderators so they can remove content expediently. This new software arrives as lawmakers from the European Union and the United Kingdom increase legal pressure on Big Tech to actively remove the content.
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“There are a lot of websites that just don’t have any people to do the enforcement. It is a really labor-intensive thing to even build the algorithms [and] then you need all those human reviewers,” Jigsaw CEO Yasmin Green told the Financial Times.
Green also said that the software is becoming increasingly necessary as companies such as Facebook and YouTube tighten their content moderation standards. “I have noticed a big shift in the [leading] platforms becoming much more effective at moderating, and that pushes terrorist content and Covid hoax claims to [other sites].”
The content will be identified via a database provided by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a partnership founded by Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube in 2017.
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Google’s move comes after the EU passed the Digital Services Act in May, which was aimed at holding platforms accountable for spreading hate speech and extremist content. Companies such as Google and Facebook argued that the bill would be detrimental to smaller tech companies since they lack the resources required to moderate appropriately.
Google is not the only one releasing software to help combat terrorism-oriented content. Meta released an open-source program on Dec. 13 that will help platforms identify if a post contains known terrorist content.