GIFCT: Big tech firms collaborate on pre-censoring terror-related content but draw criticism for lack of transparency (which might have to be intentional)

Emma Llanso of Wired describes an initiative for tech companies to systematize censorship of terrorist or harmful content, in an article “Platforms want centralized censorship; that should scare you.” 

The article describes the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube, acronym GIFCT.  The effort includes a database to guide the blacklisting of content with certain hashtags or memes in certain combinations and may lead to blacklisting certain URL’s or websites within browsers.

  

This is similar somewhat to what anti-virus software does, blocking certain sites.

The same writer had described this in an earlier article for CDT in December 2016. 

Microsoft had offered this response after Christchurch.

The Washington Post, in a piece by Elizabeth Dawson and Craig Timberg, had given a detailed description of how the perpetrator in New Zealand thwarted efforts to take down his in-process video.

  

I found only one video on YouTube discussing GIFCT (by acronym), with few views.

Picture: A PNG of me taken by a friend at a videotaping this week.