Thinking Faster than the Speed of Hate

 

Jonathan Vick, Acting Deputy Director, International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH) 

Why can’t the internet get ahead of hate? Why has fighting hate online almost always been reactive, and when it has been proactive, it is tentative and apologetic?

The time honored anti cyberhate techniques of filtering, blocking and counter-speech remain the cornerstone of online hate response. These practices are still at the core of more updated tactics which utilize AI and other technologies, but in internet time, they are still old approaches.

Blocking and filtering does not stop or dissuade hate, it simply hides it. The writer still spews hate. If there is hate on the internet and most people do not see it, is it still hate? Yes, it is.

If a person of an identifiable religious or ethnic group is walking down the street wearing headphones, and someone is walking behind them screaming abusive epithets, the target may not hear the hate, but everyone else on the street does.

That is filtering and blocking.  It does not stop hate.  It does not stop the spread or promotion of hate.

Counter-speech is the modern substitute for the lost arts of debate and dialogue. It is most effective with audiences who are receptive and willing to engage. These are rarely extremists.

Racists, xenophobes, and extremists are always looking for new ways to proselytize and manipulate audiences. Despite their protestations about anti-hate procedures on platforms, blocking and filtering are not insurmountable barriers. Developing new tactics to evade online content safety measures is a long established, ongoing practiced.

Each new breach of online anti-abuse prevention is not simply a display of creativity by bad people. It is a signal that the platforms, and community, have not been putting enough effort into outthinking the haters.

When it became obvious that manipulative political advertising was being placed by off-shore bad-actors, that was not just an indication of poor due-diligence by the platforms. Those ads should have been a warning deceptive internet content was not just the result of offensive or misleading posts on social media.

The dogmatic, unflinching defense of free speech and profit, and hesitancy to decry repugnant, corrosive, and hateful behavior has allowed the internet to become infected with opinion disguised as fact.

Hate protagonists do not hesitate to try new methods or seek subversive allies, yet anti-hate measures are agonized over endlessly and often spoil on the shelf.  We can improve the internet. We can stymie the propaganda networks which seek to undermine facts, truth, and civility. The problem is, we need to be smarter, braver, and bolder than the bad guys. If we are, we are not showing it.

 

 

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Donald Trump Fixes the Internet

For the first time in the history of the internet, a wide array of platforms took a hard stance against a spectrum of online hate and the propagation of intentionally false and misleading information.  All this has happened in response to Donald Trump’s egregious misuse and exploitation of the internet. These new standards are long overdue. Many civil-rights and civil-justice organizations have lobbied the internet industry for years to take such action. But despite a decade of determined effort prior to 2016, it only took Trump four short years to convince the internet companies how dangerous and destructive it can be to avoid implementing policies which support dangerous online behavior.

Many recently banned extremists, and inflammatory voices including Alex Jones and David Duke, have been on the internet almost since day one. The danger they posed and the slow corrosion they sought to inspire started then too. Each of them and many more have exploited every new platform and service. They were rarely turned away by the platform operators.

Extremism in the US, and on the internet, became systemic because of reluctance to act responsibly.  Donald Trump exposed just how deeply parts of our country are invested in hate. Just how significant the internet has become is in their thought processes which foster the worst in societies. How tolerance and free speech have been weaponized against democracy.

Has Trump awakened us to how far the internet has strayed from its original aspiration? Is this the watershed moment for the internet?

Unfortunately, the decision to change the ethos of the internet seems to be in the hands of the wrong people.  Despite being the fastest evolving industry in history, policy changes have always been excruciatingly slow.

Significant policy changes have only come about reactively in response to the threat of regulation, lawsuits or, arrest. Proactive policy adjustments have been far from tectonic. In an industry which regularly promotes itself as making the world better, in some very real ways, the opposite seems to have happened.

This can be an inflection point for the internet. The internet industry can never again escape the proof that it has some responsibility for what appears online. They can continue to try and evade the issue, or they can own it.

Imagine an internet dedicated to the safe, responsible, open, and yes, even contentious debate of ideas?  That would be a bizarre and wonderful side effect of Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine democracy, censor truth and marginalize dissenting voices. It may take years, but Trump may have started the process that may fix the internet.

Jonathan Vick, North American Representative & Board Member, 

International Network Against Cyber Hate

Appeasing Online Extremism - A tradition of failure

Jonathan Vick, North American Representative, International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH)

When the Internet puts appeasement and profit over principles you get insurrectionists storming the US capital.

In the early days of the internet, emerging platforms had a few simple imperatives; rely on “the greater good” succeeding, attract as many users as you can, and don’t alienate them if possible.

From a business perspective this worked very well, from a human perspective, it did not.

Yes, the internet provided marginalized communities a place online. The pioneering platforms also discovered they were enabling hate, racism, and abuse. As it turned out, there was a lot more business to be gained indulging hate and paranoia than indulging those looking to uplift, champion and ally.  

The internet’s forerunners were not the first to deploy appeasement as mode of business. They were not the first to discover the immediate benefits. They were certainly not the first to prove the disastrous consequences of appeasement. Just maybe, they should have been the ones to put an end to it, but they were not.

In the formative years of the internet, hate speech was conveniently considered just speech, just words. What happened online was not considered connected to offline behavior unless a connection to a specific real-world crime could be explicitly proved.

That practice soon became policy.  

Hateful, racist, conspiratorial, anti-Semitic, anti-government, xenophobic organizations could participate on almost every platform, and make networks of connections, as long as they did not express their violent anti-social ethos on the platform itself.  The result of tolerating hate, and appeasing hate groups so they would draw an audience, facilitated the creation of a foundation and acceptance of false information, just like the information that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January.

The internet enabled those events. Many of the policies which allowed highly destructive content were made more restrictive months or years ago, but the damage was done. The channels for caustic, corrosive, destructive falsehoods moved into their own spheres of information. Distorted information, supported by self-validating disinformation and incomplete logic, were now the life blood of the groups who had matured on the major platforms.

Many companies that are now respectable hosting services, Internet Service Providers, or Domain Name Services, got their start providing services to the worst groups on the internet under the camouflage of free-speech or a willful ignorance of those group’s objectives.

Since the 2016 election interference scandal, and certainly since the Charlottesville riot, many companies have instituted policies which reflect an awareness and dedication to addressing the harm that destructive forces on the internet can cause. However, in every single case, the platforms were warned years in advance about these groups. Respectable, credible anti-racism, anti-Semitism, anti-xenophobia groups provided volumes of evidence that these groups and ideologies were dangerous and vicious.  However, before 2016, many companies managed to rationalize practices which avoid antagonizing groups now widely considered part of the network which supported domestic terror tactics.

We all know the axiom about getting the toothpaste back in the tube or the worms back in the can. The new, recent policies enacted by the internet platforms, as important as they are, do nothing to repair the damage the previous lack of regard caused. The industry giants now have the experience, and opportunity, to clearly declare their support for truth online, and opposing intentionally destructive manipulated information.  They can make a stand against appeasement and tolerance for hate, exploitation and manipulation.

There will always be marginally moral and exploitive internet platforms and groups. Perhaps there always should be. These people and places must know that they do not have the support of a majority of the industry or the internet community. The public must know that the internet industry has their backs and is concerned with their safety and society overall. That would be a start toward repairing the internet’s legacy of appeasing and enabling our worst selves.  

The Internet’s New Chance at Redemption

Jonathan Vick, North American Representative, 

International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH)

The promise of the threat posed by unbridled internet content has come to fruition. As a member of the internet safety community, along with many colleagues, this has not come as a surprise.  We alerted the platforms that comment sections and public forums showed warning signs of exploitation and dangerous abuse more than 10 years ago.  Despite outcries over Donald Trump’s hate-enabling rhetoric and dog-whistle propaganda from irresponsible media outlets who were focused on ratings, actions against this nascent, yet obvious hate speech, never happened in most corners of the internet.  Let us call it opportunistic negligence by leading internet industry leaders.  Too many companies followed their example and too few companies voiced outrage.

After the attempted coup of 1/6/2021, belatedly, sadly, some things have finally happened.  

The internet’s opportunity at redemption may have arrived. Will it be embraced?

I am not talking about censorship, government oversight, or laws allowing crippling lawsuits. I am talking about the internet industry acting as a cohesive group where primary standards are discussed and agreed. Where the impact of content is studied openly. The protection of marginalized communities and the good of society should be enshrined as industry policy, not as an advertising slogan.

We have seen powerful, and evil people abuse a powerful medium for their own ends. This should not have happened. It can be prevented from happening again, but only if the internet industry is brave enough to seek redemption and commit to it.