 Twitter tweak steps up fight against trolls San Francisco (AFP) May 15, 2018 - Twitter said Tuesday it was stepping up its long-running battle against online trolls, trying to find offenders by looking at "behavioral signals." The new approach looks at behavioral patterns of users in addition to the content of the tweets, allowing Twitter to find and mute online bullies and trolls. Even if the offending tweets are not a violation of Twitter policy, they may be hidden from users if they are deemed to "distort" the conversation, Twitter said. The announcement is the latest "safety" initiative by Twitter, which is seeking to filter out offensive speech while remaining an open platform. Twitter already uses artificial intelligence and machine learning in this effort but the latest initiative aims to do more by focusing on the actions of certain users in addition to the content. "Our ultimate goal is to encourage more free and open conversation," chief executive Jack Dorsey said. "To do that we need to significantly reduce the ability to game and skew our systems. Looking at behavior, not content, is the best way to do that." A Twitter blog post said the move aims at "troll-like behavior" which targets certain users and tweets with derisive responses. "Some troll-like behavior is fun, good and humorous. What we're talking about today are troll-like behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation on Twitter," said the blog from Twitter executives Del Harvey and David Gasca. "Some of these accounts and tweets violate our policies, and, in those cases, we take action on them. Others don't but are behaving in ways that distort the conversation." Harvey and Gasca said the challenge has been to address "disruptive behaviors that do not violate our policies but negatively impact the health of the conversation." The new approach does not wait for people who use Twitter to report potential issues. "There are many new signals we're taking in, most of which are not visible externally," the blog post said. "Just a few examples include if an account has not confirmed their email address, if the same person signs up for multiple accounts simultaneously, accounts that repeatedly tweet and mention accounts that don't follow them, or behavior that might indicate a coordinated attack." In some cases, if the content is not a violation of Twitter policies, it will not be deleted but only shown when a user clicks on "show more replies." "The result is that people contributing to the healthy conversation will be more visible in conversations and search," Harvey and Gasca wrote. Twitter said its tests of this approach shows a four percent drop in abuse reports from search and eight percent fewer abuse reports from conversations.
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Facebook axed 583 million fake accounts in the first three months of 2018, the social media giant said Tuesday, detailing how it enforces "community standards" against sexual or violent images, terrorist propaganda or hate speech.
Responding to calls for transparency after the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Facebook said those closures came on top of blocking millions of attempts to create fake accounts every day.
Despite this, the group said fake profiles still make up 3-4 percent of all active accounts.
It claimed to detect almost 100 percent of spam and to have removed 837 million posts assimilated to spam over the same period.
Facebook pulled or slapped warnings on nearly 30 million posts containing sexual or violent images, terrorist propaganda or hate speech during the first quarter.
Improved technology using artificial intelligence had helped it act on 3.4 million posts containing graphic violence, nearly three times more than it had in the last quarter of 2017.
In 85.6 percent of the cases, Facebook detected the images before being alerted to them by users, said the report, issued the day after the company said about 200 apps had been suspended on its platform as part of an investigation into misuse of private user data.
The figure represents between 0.22 and 0.27 percent of the total content viewed by Facebook's more than two billion users from January through March.
"In other words, of every 10,000 content views, an estimate of 22 to 27 contained graphic violence," the report said.
Responses to rule violations include removing content, adding warnings to content that may be disturbing to some users while not violating Facebook standards; and notifying law enforcement in case of a "specific, imminent and credible threat to human life".
Improved IT also helped Facebook take action against 1.9 million posts containing terrorist propaganda, a 73 percent increase. Nearly all were dealt with before any alert was raised, the company said.
It attributed the increase to the enhanced use of photo detection technology.
Hate speech is harder to police using automated methods, however, as racist or homophobic hate speech is often quoted on posts by their targets or activists.
- Sarcasm needs human touch -
"It may take a human to understand and accurately interpret nuances like... self-referential comments or sarcasm," the report said, noting that Facebook aims to "protect and respect both expression and personal safety".
Facebook took action against 2.5 million pieces of hate speech content during the period, a 56 increase over October-December. But only 38 percent had been detected through Facebook's efforts -- the rest flagged up by users.
The posts that keep the Facebook reviewers the busiest are those showing adult nudity or sexual activity -- quite apart from child pornography, which is not covered by the report.
Some 21 million such posts were handled in the period, a similar number to October-December 2017.
That was less than 0.1 percent of viewed content -- which includes text, images, videos, links, live videos or comments on posts -- Facebook said, adding it had dealt with nearly 96 percent of the cases before being alerted to them.
Facebook has come under fire for showing too much zeal on this front, such as removing images of artwork tolerated under its own rules.
In March, Facebook apologised for temporarily removing an advert featuring French artist Eugene Delacroix's famous work "Liberty Leading the People" because it depicts a bare-breasted woman.
Facebook's head of global policy management Monika Bicket said the group had kept a commitment to recruit 3,000 more staff to lift the numbers dedicated to enforcing standards to 7,500 at the start of this year.
Dutch govt dropping Kaspersky software over spying fears
The Hague (AFP) May 15, 2018 -
The Dutch government is phasing out the use of anti-virus software made by Russian firm Kaspersky Lab amid fears of possible spying, despite vehement denials by the Moscow-based cyber security company.
The Dutch Justice and Security ministry said in a statement late Monday the decision had been taken as a "precautionary measure" in order "to guarantee national security".
But Kaspersky Lab, whose anti-virus software is installed on some 400 million computers worldwide, said Tuesday it was "very disappointed" by the move.
The firm, which is suspected by US authorities of helping the Kremlin's espionage efforts, also announced Tuesday that it was moving its core infrastructure and operations to Switzerland.
"Our new centre in Switzerland will strengthen the proven integrity of Kaspersky Lab's products, (and) significantly improve the resilience of our IT infrastructure to any trust risk -- even theoretical ones," the Russian company said in a statement.
Last year, the US federal government removed Kaspersky from its list of approved vendors, weeks after senior US intelligence agency and law enforcement officials expressed concerns about the safety of its software.
The Netherlands fears Kaspersky's anti-virus software is "deep in systems" and any abuse could "pose a major security risk."
Dutch officials also voiced concern that under Russian law companies such as Kaspersky are "required to cooperate with the Russian government".
But the company hit back saying "Kaspersky Lab has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its cyber espionage or offensive cyber efforts" and adding it was "being treated as guilty merely due to geopolitical issues."
It said it would try to arrange a meeting soon with the Dutch coordinator for security and counterterrorism to discuss the situation.
Dutch intelligence officials have increasingly warned however that they fear the Kremlin is trying to hack into Dutch companies and manipulate elections here.
"Russia has an active offensive cyber programme focusing on the Netherlands and vital Dutch interests," the ministry warned, adding it had therefore concluded there was a risk of "digital espionage and sabotage."
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