Social media companies step up battle against militant propaganda

Facebook, Google and Twitter are stepping up efforts to combat online propaganda and recruiting by Islamic militants, but the Internet companies are doing it quietly to avoid the perception that they are helping the authorities police the Web.

On Friday, Facebook said it took down a profile that the company believed belonged to San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband is accused of killing 14 people in a mass shooting that the FBI is investigating as an “act of terrorism.”

Just a day earlier, the French prime minister and European Commission officials met separately with Facebook, Google, Twitter Inc and other companies to demand faster action on what the commission called “online terrorism incitement and hate speech.”

The Internet companies described their policies as straightforward: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their own terms of service, and require court orders to remove or block anything beyond that. Anyone can report, or flag, content for review and possible removal.

But the truth is far more subtle and complicated. According to former employees, Facebook, Google and Twitter all worry that if they are public about their true level of cooperation with Western law enforcement agencies, they will face endless demands for similar action from countries around the world.

They also fret about being perceived by consumers as being tools of the government. Worse, if the companies spell out exactly how their screening works, they run the risk that technologically savvy militants will learn more about how to beat their systems.

“If they knew what magic sauce went into pushing content into the newsfeed, spammers or whomever would take advantage of that,” said a security expert who had worked at both Facebook and Twitter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

One of the most significant yet least understood aspects of the propaganda issue is the range of ways in which social media companies deal with government officials.

Facebook, Google and Twitter say they do not treat government complaints differently from citizen complaints, unless the government obtains a court order. The trio are among a growing number that publish regular transparency reports summarizing the number of formal requests from officials about content on their sites.

But there are workarounds, according to former employees, activists and government officials.

A key one is for officials or their allies to complain that a threat, hate speech or celebration of violence violates the company’s terms of service, rather than any law. Such content can be taken down within hours or minutes, and without the paper trail that would go with a court order.

“It is commonplace for federal authorities to directly contact Twitter and ask for assistance, rather than going through formal channels,” said an activist who has helped get numerous accounts disabled.

In the San Bernardino case, Facebook said it took down Malik’s profile, established under an alias, for violating its community standards, which prohibit praise or promotion of “acts of terror.” The spokesman said there was pro-Islamic State content on the page but declined to elaborate.
Activists mobilize

Some well-organized online activists have also had success getting social media sites to remove content.

A French-speaking activist using the Twitter alias NageAnon said he helped get rid of thousands of YouTube videos by spreading links of clear cases of policy violations and enlisting other volunteers to report them.

“The more it gets reported, the more it will get reviewed quickly and treated as an urgent case,” he said in a Twitter message to Reuters.

A person familiar with YouTube’s operations said that company officials tend to quickly review videos that generate a high number of complaints relative to the number of views.

Relying on numbers can lead to other kinds of problems.

Facebook suspended or restricted the accounts of many pro-Western Ukrainians after they were accused of hate speech by multiple Russian-speaking users in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign, said former Facebook security staffer Nick Bilogorskiy, a Ukrainian immigrant who helped some of those accounts win appeals. He said the complaints have leveled off.

A similar campaign attributed to Vietnamese officials at least temporarily blocked content by government critics, activists said.

Facebook declined to discuss these cases.

What law enforcement, politicians and some activists would really like is for Internet companies to stop banned content from being shared in the first place. But that would pose a tremendous technological challenge, as well as an enormous policy shift, former executives said.

Some child pornography can be blocked because the technology companies have access to a database that identifies previously known images. A similar type of system is in place for copyrighted music.

There is no database for videos of violent acts, and the same footage that might violate a social network’s terms of service if uploaded by an anonymous militant might pass if it were part of a news broadcast.

Nicole Wong, who previously served as the White House’s deputy chief technology officer, said tech companies would be reluctant to create a database of jihadists videos, even if it could be kept current enough to be relevant, for fear that repressive governments would demand such set-ups to pre-screen any content they do not like.

“Technology companies are rightfully cautious because they are global players, and if they build it for one purpose they don’t get to say it can’t be used for anything else,” said Wong, a former Twitter and Google legal executive.

“If you build it, they will come – it will also be used in China to stop dissidents.”
Trusted flagger

There have been some formal policy changes. Twitter revised its abuse policy to ban indirect threats of violence, in addition to direct threats, and has dramatically improved its speed for handling abuse requests, a spokesman said.

“Across the board we respond to requests more quickly, and it’s safe to say government requests are in that bunch,” the spokesman said.

Facebook said it banned this year any content praising terrorists.

Google’s YouTube has expanded a little-known “Trusted Flagger” program, allowing groups ranging from a British anti-terror police unit to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights organization, to flag large numbers of videos as problematic and get immediate action.

A Google spokeswoman declined to say how many trusted flaggers there were, but said the vast majority were individuals chosen based on their past accuracy in identifying content that violated YouTube’s policies. No U.S. government agencies were part of the program, though some non-profit U.S. entities have joined in the past year, she said.

“There’s no Wizard of Oz syndrome. We send stuff in and we get an answer,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, head of the Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate project.
Credit to Joseph Menn

Facebook Invades the Workplace and This Time It’s Legit

Facebook, the productivity killer and perennial thorn in the side of corporate managers and executives everywhere, recently revealed its latest plan to take over a little more of the world.
 With its eye on Yammer and an emerging trend towards work-driven private social networks, the company has announced Facebook at Work, billed as an alternative (and presumably better) way for employees of a company to communicate internally.
 Some apparently think that anything is better than being constantly hammered with a deluge of email. I can think of something worse — being hit with the same amount of messages but in an alternate reality Facebook where the only people who exist are the people I work with.
 But there is a positive side to Facebook’s announcement. It means more people are figuring out that email clients were never intended to be used as instant messaging software.
“Did you get the email I sent you?”
 “Probably, but I haven’t checked my email in a couple of hours.”
 “You don’t keep your inbox open?”
Nope. Because If I did, I wouldn’t get anything else done. To increase my productivity, I’ve made an effort to limit checking corporate email to three times a day. Even as an editor working with writers on what is often time-sensitive content, I’ve found that three times is usually sufficient. Collaboration doesn’t always need to be instantaneous. And when it does, there are better, more specialized tools out there than Facebook.
Some companies have an outright ban on Facebook in the workplace, partly because they see people in the outside world as a distraction to the folks inside who are trying to get work done. But Facebook believes it can convince company executives to let employees use its “at work” version like a company intranet. They’re even changing the color of the user interface so supervisors can tell with one glance if you’re on “work Facebook” or “real Facebook.”
The whole idea, of course, is based on the false assumption that people inside your company won’t be as much a of a drag on productivity as those in your newsfeed who are outside the company.
Good luck with that. Have you ever been pulled reluctantly into a real-time chat on Facebook when you were really intending to just check your feed and move on to something else? Imagine having this experience on a regular basis with your colleagues.
Another big question is Facebook’s ability to keep data safe. If Facebook at Work is meant to be a collaborative space, there’s inevitably going to be some confidential information on the network. Facebook says information will be kept “secure, confidential and completely separate” from personal Facebook profiles.
Recent high-profile security breaches like the one at Sony, however, might give some companies a reason to be skeptical. But even if the social media giant can deliver on its guarantee, who’s going to protect our information from Facebook?
I can’t even look at a pair of Nikes online without the same shoes following me to virtually every other site I visit online, including making multiple appearances in my Facebook feed. And Facebook already creeps me out with its ability to target ads. What would it be able to do if it knew my daily work details too?
Facebook, for its part, assures that such a scenario wouldn’t happen. BBC reports, “At this stage the work version will not feature adverts, nor will it gather data about its users that could be sold on to third parties.”
But what about the next stage? Could a company that has built massive wealth by collecting user data and selling targeted advertising really give up its data addiction so easily?
Don’t count on it.
I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with a company collecting data as part of its business model, as long as it’s up front about it. Own what you do. But why is it that, with Facebook, every new announcement always makes you wonder if another shoe is about to drop?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, like any shrewd businessman, is not only trying to reach more potential customers, he’s trying to create more potential customers. This week, he’s in Colombia launching an initiative for Internet.org, a nonprofit partnership aimed at bringing affordable Internet access to everyone.
According to Reuters, the partnership’s free Internet application brings tools like Wikipedia, job listings, weather websites and health information to low income users. And Facebook — did I mention Facebook? Because apparently no one in the world can do without Facebook.
Soon there won’t be too many places where you can escape it. Including, if Zuckerberg has his way, your office.




Credit to Shane Raynor

New Development On Facebook: Updating Our Terms and Policies- Helping You Understand How Facebook Works and How to Control Your Information

By using our services after January 1, 2015, you agree to our updated terms, data policy, and cookies policy and to seeing improved ads based on apps and sites you use. Learn more below about these updates and how to control the ads you see.

Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features and controls to help you get more out of Facebook, and listened to people who have asked us to better explain how we get and use information.

Now, with Privacy Basics, you'll get tips and a how-to guide for taking charge of your experience on Facebook. We're also updating our terms, data policy and cookies policy to reflect new features we've been working on and to make them easy to understand. And we're introducing improvements to ads based on the apps and sites you use off Facebook (online behavioral advertising) and giving you control.

These updates take effect on January 1, 2015. As always, we welcome your feedback about our policies.

Privacy Basics

Privacy Basics offers interactive guides to answer the most commonly asked questions about how you can control your information on Facebook. For example, you can learn about untagging, unfriending, blocking and how to choose an audience for each of your posts. This information is available in 36 languages.

Along with our privacy checkup, reminder for people posting publicly and simplified audience selectors, Privacy Basics is the latest step we've taken to help you make sure you're sharing with the people you want.

Helping you get more out of Facebook

Every day, people use our apps and services to connect with the people, places and things they care about. The updates to our policies reflect the new products we've been working on to improve your Facebook experience. They also explain how our services work in a way that's easier to understand. Here are some highlights:

Discover what's going on around you: We’re updating our policies to explain how we get location information depending on the features you decide to use. Millions of people check into their favorite places and use optional features like Nearby Friends (currently only available in some regions). We're working on ways to show you the most relevant information based on where you are and what your friends are up to. For example, in the future, if you decide to share where you are, you might see menus from restaurants nearby or updates from friends in the area.

Make purchases more convenient: In some regions, we're testing a Buy button that helps people discover and purchase products without leaving Facebook. We're also working on new ways to make transactions even more convenient.

Find information about privacy on Facebook at the moment you need it: To make them more accessible, we moved tips and suggestions to Privacy Basics. Our data policy is shorter and clearer, making it easier to read.

Understand how we use the information we receive: For example, understanding battery and signal strength helps make sure our apps work well on your device. We ask for permission to use your phone's location when we offer optional features like check-ins or adding your location to posts.

Get to know how the family of Facebook companies and apps work together: Over the past few years, Facebook has grown and we want to make sure you know about our family of companies, apps and services. We use the information we collect to improve your experience. For example, if you're locked out of your Instagram account, you can use your Facebook information to recover your password. Nothing in our updates changes the commitments that Instagram, WhatsApp and other companies have made to protect your information and your privacy.

Your information and advertising: People sometimes ask how their information is shared with advertisers. Nothing is changing with these updates—we help advertisers reach people with relevant ads without telling them who you are. Learn more about ads and how you can control the ads you see.

Giving you more control over ads

We've heard from some of you that it can be difficult to control the types of ads you see if you use multiple devices and browsers. In the past, if you opted out of certain kinds of advertising on your laptop, that choice may not have been applied for ads on your phone. We know that many people use more than one phone, tablet or browser to access Facebook, so it should be easy for you to make a single choice that applies across all of your devices.

That's why Facebook respects the choices you make about the ads you see, across every device. You can opt out of seeing ads on Facebook based on the apps and sites you use through the Digital Advertising Alliance. You can also opt out using controls on iOS and Android. When you tell us you don't want to see these types of ads, your decision automatically applies to every device you use to access Facebook. Also, we're now making ad preferences available in additional countries, beginning with Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the UK.

We hope these updates improve your experience. Protecting people's information and providing meaningful privacy controls are at the core of everything we do, and we believe these announcements are an important step.