Authoritarian governments tell their citizens that censorship is necessary for stability. It’s our responsibility to demonstrate that stability and free expression go hand in hand. We should make it ever easier to see the news from another country’s point of view, and understand the global consciousness free from filter or bias. We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice. Without this type of leadership from government, from citizens, from tech companies, the Internet could become a vehicle for further disaggregation of poorly built societies, and the empowerment of the wrong people, and the wrong voices.
The good news is, it’s all within reach. Intuition, compassion, creativity — these are the tools that we will use to combat violence and terror online, to drown out the hate with a broadly shared humanity that only the Web makes possible.
by Eric Schmidt
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/07/opinion/eric-schmidt-on-how-to-build-a-better-web.html
Turning Point: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria declares a war on Twitter.
For those of us who have enjoyed access to the Internet for decades now, it can be pretty difficult to remember our first online interactions. But there are plenty of people for whom that feeling is recent and powerful: In just the past five years, more than a billion users have connected to the Internet for the first time. Whether on a desktop or a smartphone, through broadband or Google’s high-altitude balloon Wi-Fi network, they are only now experiencing how profound the simple act of getting online can be. Consider, for instance, that a girl in a schoolhouse in rural Indonesia may read this article on a tablet today — something that was impossible for her as recently as a year ago. Her experience online, when she leaves this article and ventures out onto the rest of the Web, is one that holds great potential.
John Perry Barlow wrote in his essay “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” that the Internet promised “a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” In many ways, that promise has been realized. The Internet has created safe spaces for communities to connect, communicate, organize and mobilize, and it has helped many people to find their place and their voice. It has engendered new forms of free expression, and granted access to ideas that didn’t exist before. Children have educations they never would have gotten otherwise; entrepreneurs have started businesses they couldn’t even have imagined without it. It has created friendships, strengthened connections and fulfilled dreams for billions of people around the world. It’s been heralded as a driver of democracy, enabling citizen uprisings and on-the-ground reporting during the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Middle East, the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong and protests in Brazil and India this year.
As with all great advances in technology, expanded Web access has also brought with it some serious challenges, like threats to free speech, qualms about surveillance and fears of online terrorist activity. For all the good people can do with new tools and new inventions, there are always some who will seek to do harm. Ever since there’s been fire, there’s been arson.
In Myanmar, connectivity fans the flames of violence against the Rohingya, the minority Muslim population. In Russia, farms of online trolls systematically harass democratic voices and spread false information on the Internet and on social media. And in the Middle East, terrorists use social media to recruit new members. In particular, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has harnessed social media to appeal to disaffected young people, giving them a sense of belonging and direction that they are not getting anywhere else. The militants’ propaganda videos are high on style and production value. They’re slick and marketable. In short, they are deluding some people to believe that living a life fueled by hatred and violence is actually … cool.
This is where our own relationship with the Internet, and with technology, must be examined more closely. The Internet is not just a series of tubes transmitting information from place to place, terminal to terminal, without regard for those typing on their keyboards or reading on their screens. The people who use any technology are the ones who need to define its role in society. Technology doesn’t work on its own, after all. It’s just a tool. We are the ones who harness its power.
Think back to the civil rights movement in America in the 1960s, during which the lives of minorities changed radically in a very short period of time as a result of concerted activism, inviting and open conversation and an empathy that had been missing to that point. Well, that was before people could meet in cyberspace and rally around a common set of ideals, before they could have a debate with someone in another hemisphere as if they were in the same room and before we could watch videos taken from people’s cellphones and see what others around the world are standing up for, and who they are standing up to.
Now we have all that at our disposal — we just need to take advantage of it. It’s all too easy to use the Internet exclusively to connect with like-minded people rather than seek out perspectives that we wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to. This sort of tribalism masks the need for common values and strong leadership. Societies are built one value, and one bargain, at a time. And it’s important we use that connectivity to promote the values that bring out the best in people.
The Internet is showing us the raw reality of the lives of oppressed people and their real needs, and it is also allowing some of our worst traits — in the form of envy, oppression and hate — to come into full view as well. We need strong leaders worldwide who will fight broadly for human progress and tolerance, and focus on bettering everyone’s lives. We need leaders to use the new power of technology to allow us to broaden our horizons as individuals, and in the process broaden the horizons of our society.
Authoritarian governments tell their citizens that censorship is necessary for stability. It’s our responsibility to demonstrate that stability and free expression go hand in hand. We should make it ever easier to see the news from another country’s point of view, and understand the global consciousness free from filter or bias. We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice. Without this type of leadership from government, from citizens, from tech companies, the Internet could become a vehicle for further disaggregation of poorly built societies, and the empowerment of the wrong people, and the wrong voices.
The good news is, it’s all within reach. Intuition, compassion, creativity — these are the tools that we will use to combat violence and terror online, to drown out the hate with a broadly shared humanity that only the Web makes possible. It’s up to us to make sure that when the young girl reading this in Indonesia on her tablet moves on from this page, the Web that awaits her is a safe and vibrant place, free from coercion and conformity.
投稿削除はどこまで？ テロに揺れるソーシャルメディア
by 宮地ゆう
http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASHD843MQHD8UHBI00M.html
パリの同時多発テロや米カリフォルニア州で起きた銃乱射事件が、ソーシャルメディアのあり方について米国で議論を呼んでいる。テロを称賛するような過激な書き込みにどう対処するのか。削除や通報を求める声が高まる一方、ネット上の自由な投稿を「自己検閲」することになりかねないという懸念もある。
「政府、市民、ＩＴ企業がテロ集団のアカウントに対処しなければ、インターネットは間違った人々の声を増幅させる道具になってしまう」。今月７日、グーグルの親会社アルファベットのエリック・シュミット会長は、米ニューヨーク・タイムズにこう投稿した。そして、「憎悪や嫌がらせの言葉を抽出できるような機能を作り、ＩＳ（過激派組織『イスラム国』）のようなテロリストの動画が広まる前に削除し、対テロのメッセージを広めるべきだ」とも書いた。これまでネットの中立性を重要視してきたシリコンバレー企業の中で、一歩踏み込んだ意見だ。
米政府は、カリフォルニア州の銃乱射事件をテロと断定した。タシュフィーン・マリク容疑者はフェイスブック上でＩＳに忠誠を誓っていたとされる。世界で１５億人の利用者を抱えるフェイスブック社も、テロや事件が起きるたびに関係者の投稿に注目が集まり、対応に追われる。同社は「テロを支持したり称賛したりする内容は削除する規定に従い、マリク容疑者の投稿は削除した」としている。
(sk)
エリック・シュミット（Eric E. Schmidt）は、ノーベルのトップからグーグルのトップになった人。もちろんアメリカ人。だからこんな文章を書いてしまう。
エリック・シュミットは、「責任ある市民、政府、およびハイテク企業は、人類の進歩と寛容のために戦わなければならず、インターネットを『悪い人』や『悪い声』をサポートしない場所にする必要がある」と言う。
「そのためには『憎しみ』や『嫌がらせ』”を探すアルゴリズムが必要だ」という。そういうアルゴリズムがあれば、「社会的な合意は『良い人』や『良い声』によって構築される」とも言う。
エリック・シュミットはまるで、誰が「良い人」か「悪い人」かを、そしてなにが「良い声」か「悪い声」かを、知っているかのようだ。言葉を変えればエリック・シュミットは、自分が神だと言っているのだ。
そんなアルゴリズムを作ったら、まずアメリカ政府が、インターネット上から排除されてしまう。エリック・シュミットにはそういう想像は決してできない。
本当に怖いのはテロリストがインターネットを使うことではなく、アメリカがなにが良くてなにが悪いのかを決め、それがインターネットのルールになり、アメリカの企業がそれを実施していくことだ。
国家が戦争で殺戮をすればそれは良いことで、テロリストが殺戮をすればそれは悪いこと。国家が病院に麻薬を売ればそれは良いことで、暴力団が麻薬をうればそれは悪いこと。言葉での決めつけほど、怖いことはない。
私は決してテロリストや暴力団を擁護しているのではない。ただ時に、国家は、テロリストや暴力団よりも始末に負えないと言いたいだけだ。
エリック・シュミットがハイテク企業のトップだということは、そして優秀な人たということは、間違いない。でもだからといって、こんなことを書いていいわけはない。