Facebook announced[1] this week that algorithms catch 99.5 percent of the terrorism-related content it deletes before a single user reports it. Thanks to steadily advancing AI tools, that's an improvement from last year, when that figure hovered around 97 percent. But promising as those developments may be, a new report[2] by the internet safety nonprofit Digital Citizens Alliance demonstrates how easy it still is to find grisly images of dead bodies, calls to jihad, and ISIS and Al Qaeda imagery on both Facebook and Instagram.
The report contains dozens of screenshots[3] of beheadings and terrorist recruitment content linked to accounts that, as of this week, remained live on both platforms. It also includes links to even more graphic content that lives on Google+, a platform that has largely gone undiscussed amid its parent company Alphabet’s overtures about eliminating radical content on both YouTube and Google Search.
"It seems based on everything we know the platforms are stuck in a loop. There’s criticism, promises to fix, and it doesn't go away," says Tom Galvin, executive director of the Digital Citizens Alliance, which has conducted research on topics like the sale of counterfeit goods and illicit drugs online.
Working with researchers at the Global Intellectual Property Enforcement Center, or GIPEC, the Digital Citizens Alliance amassed a trove of evidence documenting terrorist activity on these online platforms. The researchers used a combination of machine learning and human vetting to search for suspicious keywords and hashtags, then scoured the networks connected to those posts to find more. On Instagram and Facebook, they found users sharing copious images of ISIS soldiers posing with the black flag. One Instagram account reviewed by WIRED on Tuesday posted a photo of two men being beheaded by soldiers in black