Should social media companies ban certain content?

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft to join hands and filter out content they consider “terrorist propaganda”.

Social media has become an important part of our lives, galvanising protesters and driving elections.

Some of the world’s biggest social media companies want to battle against what they consider “terrorist propaganda” online.

Keep reading

Why does NASA want a time zone on the moon?

Could shipping containers be the answer to Ghana’s housing crisis?

Are Chinese electric vehicles taking over the world?

First pig kidney in a human: Is this the future of transplants?

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft want to create a database of “digital fingerprints”, which will flag content that is considered offensive or violent.

That includes recruitment videos for armed groups or gruesome imagery.

Once one bit of content is removed by one company, others can quickly follow suit, the companies hope.

But should these companies be in the business of censoring content?

Presenter: Sohail Rahman

Guests:

Robert Pape – Director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism at the University of Chicago and co-author of Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It

Aral Balkan – Digital rights activist

Jamil Jaffer – Former associate counsel to President George W Bush and Director of the Homeland and National Security Law Programme at George Mason University