Christchurch terror: Give government — not platforms — the power to shut down evil
We can’t rely on social media platforms to report terror live streaming. The only solution is a notice system that alerts police _ just like we do for cyber-bullying, writes cyber security expert Andre Oboler.
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I’ve been working to tackle the growing problem of online hate and extremism since 2007. Back then, MySpace was the major social media platform and Facebook had just 70 million users. Now, a third of the planet uses it.
Since 2012 I’ve done so through the Online Hate Prevention Institute, the only harm-prevention charity in Australia dedicated to tackling online hate and extremism. In that capacity, I welcome the move to protect the Australian public and provide a backstop to ensure compliance.
It won’t help with non-commercial services likes 8Chan, where the link to the Christchurch killer’s live stream was announced, but regulation can ensure commercial platforms doing business in Australia, such as Facebook, YouTube or Twitter, invest the resources needed to comply.
An approach that requires platforms to act as soon as they become aware of a problem may be ineffective. None of the 200 people who watched the Christchurch attack live reported it. Facebook would therefore not have been immediately aware it.
The most practical approach for acting against hate speech, including the live streaming of acts of terrorism as well as streaming videos, is through a notice system.
In a notice system a single point of contact, for example the Australian Federal Police commissioner, would have a communications channel at the companies which was staffed 24/7. When a notification of a particular live-stream was made, the content would be blocked as fast as humanly possible.
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Currently, the only notice system that we have which is backed by penalties for platforms is for cyber-bullying against children. In the area of hate speech, powers are limited.
The most effective system to block such offensive material would be a tool giving governments the ability to take direct action by killing a live-stream instantly, and disabling the account to stop the stream being restarted.
Such a solution is technically possible, but platforms would be extremely reluctant to give governments that level of direct control over their systems. If such tools were made available to authoritarian regimes it could have a devastating impact on dissidents. Even if it were limited to countries that respect democracy, human rights and the rule of law, safeguards would be needed.
The federal government announced yesterday that it would draft laws after meeting with representatives of the major social media companies.
The government’s proposal is to punish companies who fail to remove extremist content as soon as they become aware of it. For live-streamed terrorist acts, that may not be soon enough. Delaying the live stream would be useless as it can’t be reported until it is seen.
I’ve been warning since 2010 that a new approach to regulating online hate was needed; an approach where corporations that seek to profit from social media assume public obligations, including an obligation to take reasonable steps to discourage online hate.
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The most extreme forms of online hate, being those connected to acts of terrorism, need the highest level of co-operation between social media companies and government and regulation to ensure that occurs.
While freedom of speech has little merit in the context of a terrorist live-streaming an attack, transparency reporting on the number of times governments use shutdown powers is essential to protect against abuse.
This transparency is important regardless of whether the removal is carried out by government directly through a tool, by a social media company responding to a government issued notice, or by a platform responding to content on its own initiative.
There are at least 5.5 million live streams a day on Facebook and the number of streams that are reported daily is likely to be significant.
Had the Christchurch live-stream been reported, it would still for a time be lost in a glut of reports; some mistaken, some malicious, and all less urgent than the unfolding act of terrorism.
The other option is to suspend a reported stream without human review, an approach that would allow massive censorship of live-streaming severely impacting freedom of speech and open to manipulation for reasons of politics, commerce and statecraft.
We need to bring government, civil society and academia together to ensure we have the best legal and technological expertise so the legislation that is created is in fact practical and effective.
Dr Andre Oboler is CEO of the Online Hate Prevention Institute and a cybersecurity expert in the Law School at La Trobe University. @oboler
Originally published as Christchurch terror: Give government — not platforms — the power to shut down evil
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