Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#121

Post by FridgeSeal » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

fhcm8o3x4h wrote: post #16

warning26 wrote: post #9

I know people on here will disagree with this, but I think many of these events indicate that online censorship is needed. I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.

As with any idea, people come to believe and subscribe to ideologies because they are genuinely pursuasive and they are persuasive because they contain substantial - and often meaningful/relevant - truths (if biased and omitting other relevant truths). However, censorship is exactly the wrong thing to do. If these pockets of knowledge are cordoned off, and inaccessible to causal observers then fewer people will know…

We’re not going to forget about fascism just because we stopped giving fascist propaganda so much limelight.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#122

Post by Pharmakon » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

itchyjunk wrote: post #95

Animats wrote: post #88

The US has shootings this big most years now. Las Vegas festival shooting, 2017, 59 dead. Sutherland Springs church shooting, 2017, 27 dead. Orlando nightclub shooting, 2016, 50 dead. Yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people. But for a high body count, you need a good assault rifle like the AR-15 family, the choice of most mass shooters. Streaming your mass shooting is fully supported by off the shelf products…

I don't follow. Ban certain guns and GoPro? What happens when someone crazy starts stabbing people with hunting knife? Ban knives? Ban live streaming? I don't follow how you turned a shooting in NZ into a `America, Land of Guns` rant.

Here in the U.K. we’re more or less having this conversation about knives. A lot of stabbing occur, but notably you don’t get hundreds killed and injured from one guy with a knife. Still, knife crime is being used to justify what Americans call “stop and frisk” and what knives are legal to own or carry. I’m in the middle on the topic, insofar as I’m against the usual Tory law and order rubbish, against stopping people to search them, but I agree that you don’t need to walk around a city with a machete or even a kitchen knife. On the other hand predictably the government is taking the opportunity to squeeze social media over what they’re allowed to show. It’s all very cynical, but at least our yearly body count per capita is dwarfed by America’s. We don’t do everything right, but we get that right at least.

And sure, even if we get rid of all the knives, there are still assholes who throw acid at you, but again the scope and severity is reduced. New Zealand had a terrible mass shooting many years ago, and much like Australia restricted access to certain firearms (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramoana_massacre). I expect they’ll further restrict firearms going forward, again like Australia, and while they’ll still have violent incidents they won’t lose 50 lives each time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_New_Zea... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Austral...

Look at what happened after Port Arthur. The worst attacks were vehicular and arson, and still it takes adding many together to add up to one mass shooting. There is a reason why people outside of America don’t act like guns aren’t part of the problem, and an easy part to address. They’re willing to accept the value of harm reduction, because they look at how many were killed and wounded in just Las Vegas, or the nightclub in Orlando, or Aurora. Look at this list! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United...

America lost more people in the last decade alone to mass shootings than NZ lost in all of their massacres with all weapons and in all circumstances (including wartime) since the 1800’s. In a list of the worst mass shootings in history, you have ISIS terrorism in France, Al Qaeda terrorism in Kenya, Anders Breivik in Norway, terrorism again in Kenya, and the next is Las Vegas. The rest of the list is mostly terrorist incidents in Africa and parts of Europe, mixed with a huge number of mass shootings from average citizens in the U.S. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-deadliest-mass-shoot...

Maybe guns aren’t the problem, but some combination of factors is and Americans as a group seem unwilling or unable to confront those reasons effectively. Other nations do, NZ has and will, and they won’t tear each other apart doing it.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#123

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

sasasassy wrote: post #65

happytoexplain wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with this notion generally, you're avoiding the relevant point, which is that information is not something that inherently can have no direct effect on the real world. Child porn is the usual example where you can start to make a reasonable argument that possessing it creates a real-world effect, not due to the possession itself, but due to the necessary action required to possess, which is seeking it o…

Acquiring child porn doesn't have to be any more difficult than acquiring videos of beheadings and other vile acts. It was only made difficult to acquire out of puritanism, there's nothing intrinsic about it that suggests you have to commit further crimes to find it. And if the idea is that the public is too dumb and easy to influence and therefore cannot be shown child porn or killings in New Zeland etc then it does…

And yet CP aficionados often seem to end up producing their own because it becomes an object of trade on certain black markets. Here's an example from just a month ago: http://www.foxla.com/news/local-news/porn-actress-director-a...

How is it that people who become interested in and start to collect CP would ever become involved in its production, in your model? Having gained access to a product they desire, those people seem to follow the same pattern as enthusiasts of any other taste, and develop an interest in creating their own material, as opposed to being satisfied with that already available.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#124

Post by hombre_fatal » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #58

40acres wrote: post #11

We have yet to have a real discussion about what we expect the largest platforms to do about content like this. The nature of online content is that once it's created it can be copied quite easily, if Facebook was able to block 80% of this content that should be commended. AI is not at the point where we can expect 100% of this content to be removed and if it was there would likely be some collateral damage that othe…

20% not being caught is surprisingly high to me. I would have assumed the majority of the upload attempts would be byte-for-byte identical, and that even if there were a dozen minor variations of the same content, they would be able to deal with >95% automatically.

80% of the videos probably did match a simple sha1 lookup and were trivially removed. Now what?

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#125

Post by Pharmakon » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #3

The video of the 757s hitting the WTC isn't purged from the internet, why should this video be? The world is dark and full of terrors (but getting better every day), and sticking our heads in the sand doesn't change that.

I don’t get people who seem to understand that it’s morally and legally sound to censor videos of children being raped, but when they’re being murdered it’s somehow a different story.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#126

Post by yongjik » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #14

warning26 wrote: post #9

I know people on here will disagree with this, but I think many of these events indicate that online censorship is needed. I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.

>I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this. Because of course, censorship only blocks the material you personally don't want others to view and never material you personally would want others to view. I can see a lot of politicians, especiall…

Yes, but on the other hand, the prevalence of far-right dialogue contributed to the rise of far-right politicians. When they are in power, they use their power to block the voices for minority rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, etc. Do you think they will stop, thinking "Oh but far-right voices are still allowed, it won't be fair if I silence women's activists"?

All things considered, I'm not convinced that censoring extreme far-right contents is a long-term net negative for freedom of speech. (Well, it could be, but it's not a given.)

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#127

Post by anigbrowl » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

sasasassy wrote: post #67

tantalor wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but knowingly transmitting CP is arguably "aiding & abetting" (i.e., encouraging) the "actual crimes" after the fact.

Yes but it shouldn't. Sharing some bad videos is considered bad, like child porn or NZ shooting. Sharing others is fine, like beheadings, other terror attacks, war footage. Making violent videogames is fine (see most FPS), but if they are a little more out of the norm they're bad (see a game called "Postal"). I'd like to know who decides on these arbitrary things.

Darn, if only there were some sort of information network that would allow people to find where things like laws and policies originate. I guess we'll never know.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#128

Post by danso » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #3

The video of the 757s hitting the WTC isn't purged from the internet, why should this video be? The world is dark and full of terrors (but getting better every day), and sticking our heads in the sand doesn't change that.

I agree with what other repliers have said, that there's a difference between footage recorded by bystanders, versus footage produced by the actual attacker, who stands to gain by having that footage disseminated.

That said, it is interesting to me how platforms are going to deal with transformative "fair use" cases. The obvious scenario is news coverage which excerpts/screenshots the video. But I've also seen clips of the raw footage being shared by Muslim/Arabic-speaking groups on Twitter, seemingly in the context of wanting to point out to their community the horrific reality they face. It being Twitter, the posts are visible to the world even if it's meant for a specific audience. I didn't bookmark the tweet, but I assume these videos got taken down. But I wonder if the users faced different sanctions. They are significantly different in situtation than those sharing the video to glorify the shooter.

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#129

Post by fzeroracer » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

armitron wrote: post #18

warning26 wrote: post #9

I know people on here will disagree with this, but I think many of these events indicate that online censorship is needed. I believe it's becoming increasingly clear that merely allowing far-right dialogue online is essentially responsible for ease of radicalization, and that proactive censorship would be the best approach to forestall this.

Radicalization happens a lot quicker when groups are forced into ideological bubbles that have no pressure release valves. I feel as if we have two real choices here: + We fundamentally change how the Internet works and introduce an omnipotent overseer that enforces norms and behavior. We have to go all the way with this in order to reap the security benefits, half-measures - what we have today - won't work. If we do…

If that decentralized approach worked, then the various chans should've never been taken over by white supremacists. Can you offer an explanation as to how that fits your model?

Re: Facebook failed to block 20% of uploaded New Zealand shooter videos

#130

Post by ben_w » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

fizx wrote: post #90

ben_w wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20% not being caught is surprisingly high to me. I would have assumed the majority of the upload attempts would be byte-for-byte identical, and that even if there were a dozen minor variations of the same content, they would be able to deal with >95% automatically.

1.5 million videos uploaded implies the involvement of at least persistent script-kiddies, if not possibly state-level actors getting involved for propaganda. This seems likely to be an arms race.

1.5 million uploads represents 0.1% of Facebook users making a single attempt each. While I expect some script efforts in general, I feel it’s an unnecessary complication in this case.