Major tech companies on Thursday committed to taking fresh steps to combat online extremism by removing more violent content and promoting media literacy with young users, as part of a White House summit on fighting hate-fueled violence.
Platforms such as Alphabet's YouTube and Meta’s Facebook
have come under fire for years from critics who say the companies have allowed
hate speech, lies and violent rhetoric to flourish on their services.
U.S. President Joe Biden earlier Thursday called on
Americans to combat racism and extremism during a summit at the White House
that gathered experts and survivors and included bipartisan local leaders.
YouTube said it will expand its policies on violent
extremism to remove content that glorifies violent acts, even if the creators
of the videos are not related to a terrorist organization.
The video streaming site already prohibits violent
incitement, but in at least some cases has not applied existing policies to
videos promoting militia groups involved with the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S.
Capitol.
A report by the Tech Transparency Project in May found 435
pro-militia videos on YouTube, including 85 posted since Jan. 6. Some of the
videos gave training advice, like how to carry out guerilla-style ambushes.
YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon declined to say whether the
service would change its approach to that content under the new policy but said
the update enables it to go further with enforcement than it had previously.
YouTube also said it will launch a media literacy campaign
to teach younger users how to spot the manipulation tactics that are used to
spread misinformation.
Microsoft said it will make a basic and more affordable
version of its artificial intelligence and machine learning tools available to
schools and smaller organizations in order to help them detect and prevent
violence.
Facebook owner Meta announced it will partner with
researchers from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies' Center on
Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism.
Last year, lawmakers grilled the chief executives of
Alphabet and Facebook, as well as Twitter, on whether their companies bore some
responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack.
