YouTube and Jigsaw Use Search Redirects to Fight Terrorism

Jigsaw collaborated with Moonshot CVE, an organization that uses tech to combat violent extremism, to conduct research to understand how extremist groups use technology to recruit new members.

This is just an early release of the Redirect Method.

The move will blacklist a glossary of unspecified terror-related keywords, referring individuals using the search terms to a curated playlist of videos created to “debunk violent extremist recruiting narratives”.

Last month, YouTube announced that it’s stepping up its efforts to fight extremism and terrorism online, following the announcement of its parent company’s campaign towards creating a safer internet.

YouTube, launching a new way to fight the spread of terrorist propaganda, said it has begun rolling out a feature that will redirect searches for specific terrorism-related keywords to a playlist of videos “debunking violent extremist recruiting narratives”.

YouTube has revealed plans to redirect users searching for “violent extremist propaganda” and instead offer them videos that denounce terrorism. YouTube will also be adding other languages and expanding the program into Europe while using machine learning to dynamically update a list of “trigger” keywords that activate the anti-terrorist playlists.

In this sense, YouTube’s embrace of the redirect method looks like a smart strategy.

YouTube on Thursday said it hopes the Redirect Method will help “change minds of people at risk of being radicalized“.

Google also plans to work with NGOs to create content that aims to “counter violent extremist messaging at different parts of the radicalization funnel”.

As far as the success of the Redirect Method goes, the Google-owned giant will monitor the engagement on these videos to judge how the model is working. Ultimately, however, YouTube will only ever be able to reduce rather than eliminate extremist content, and other platforms will spring up to take its place as outlets.

As the Verge points out, an early pilot of the Redirect Method sent 320,000 people to watch more than 500,000 minutes of ISIS-refuting videos.

Online extremism has plagued online outlets including Google and YouTube.