Despite Promises To Do Otherwise, Tech Fails To Set Industry Norms & Assist
Smaller Websites With Content Moderation


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Tech & Terrorism: Coronavirus Misinformation Across Internet Shows Industry’s
Failings

Despite Promises To Do Otherwise, Tech Fails To Set Industry Norms & Assist
Smaller Websites With Content Moderation

(New York, N.Y.) – Extremist groups spreading misinformation and conspiracy
theories surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic havemoved
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away from popular social media platforms to other sites to sow discord and
disperse their radical ideologies. Extremists are increasingly favoring
alternatives such as Google Drive and Internet Archive over major social media
platforms in order to avoid detection and takedowns of their violent propaganda
and misinformation campaigns. This shift in tactics calls into question the
Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) efficacy, which was
created by the tech industry to prevent extremists from misusing sites across
the Internet.

In 2017, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube created the GIFCT in
response to growing criticism from the public and lawmakers over tech’s
inability to halt the spread of extremist and terrorist material online. The
GIFCT’s stated mission is to leverage technology and share information and best
practices to help ensure consistent policies and practices across platforms and
sites. In effect, the GIFCT is supposed to facilitate cooperation between large
companies—which have more resources and manpower to moderate extremist content
on their platforms—and small tech firms.

“The appearance of radical and potentially harmful COVID-19 misinformation on
sites like Google Drive and Internet Archive calls into question the GIFCT’s
purpose and efficacy,” said Counter Extremism Project (CEP) Executive Director
David Ibsen. “There is no reason the GIFCT could not quickly create and
establish an effective set of industry norms for extremist COVID-19 content,
especially when major social media platforms have alreadydecided
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to remove that type of content. It is troubling that YouTube and Google Drive,
which are owned by the same parent company, cannot ensure that the same or
similar pieces of content are removed. The fact that this content is also
appearing on sites like Internet Archive raises concerns about the GIFCT’s
claims of supporting smaller platforms. Clearly, tech companies still have not
learned from the Christchurch attack video, which was reuploaded millions of
times across the Internet. And their careless inability to coordinate among
GIFCT members to prevent the proliferation of extremist content online will
continue to harm lives and public safety.”

One of the most infamous episodes of the GIFCT’s failures involved Brenton
Tarrant’s New Zealand Christchurch attack video, which was livestreamed on
Facebook. Despite its intial takedown, the video was still reuploadedmillions
of times
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across the entire Internet. On Facebook alone, it was reuploaded1.5 million
times
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. Facebook’s spectacular failure to stop the livestream of the New Zealand
shootings and halt reuploads of the video onto other sites and platforms makes
it clear that the time and resources dedicated to the GIFCT has amounted to
very little, especially as Facebook admits its algorithms can’t even
distinguish between shootings and “visually similar” but harmless video games.
One year later in March, CEP still was able toeasily locate the video online
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, including on both Google Drive and Internet Archive.

Further, extremists spreading misinformation about COVID-19 are following the
same strategy undertaken by ISIS. Justlast week
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, between May 16 to May 22, CEP located four ISIS Amaq Newsvideos
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on the Internet Archive. One video showed the execution of a man identified as
a Kurdish deminer and the other three were similarly situated terror propaganda
content. This tactic of using sites that are not traditional social media
platforms has been tracked for years. In November 2019, ISIS’s Amaq News outlet
posted
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over 45 pieces of ISIS propaganda material on the Internet Archive. One of
ISIS’s most notorious bomb-making videos involving TATP, a powerful but
unstable explosive that can be made using basic household components, was found
to be continuously uploaded ontoGoogle Drive
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in January 2018.

 

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