Google Inc. is upping its fight against the spread of extremist content on its YouTube service by rolling out new artificial-intelligence services in conjunction with additional human oversight to stop it faster.

The advanced AI platform will use ongoing machine learning research that in theory can automatically flag and remove terrorist videos but at the same time not take down legitimate news reports. The challenge is for the platform to determine which is which. For example, a terrorist organization may post a clip that is then used in part by a legitimate news service such as the BBC, the latter an acceptable presentation of the content.

“We have used video analysis models to find and assess more than 50 percent of the terrorism-related content we have removed over the past six months,” Google General Counsel Kent Walker said on the official Google blog. “We will now devote more engineering resources to apply our most advanced machine learning research to train new ‘content classifiers’ to help us more quickly identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content.”

Algorithms that use machine learning and AI will be complemented by a human touch, with YouTube greatly increasing the number of independent experts in its Trusted Flagger program. “Machines can help identify problematic videos, but human experts still play a role in nuanced decisions about the line between violent propaganda and religious or newsworthy speech,” Walker added.

In addition to taking extremist videos down, videos described as not clearly violating YouTube’s policies, such as those that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content, will also be treated more harshly in the future. Those videos will no longer be able to run ads, comments on them will be turned off and they will be made harder to find.

The announcement follows criticism by European governments, most notably U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, that Google, along with Facebook Inc., provide a “safe space” for terrorists. May and her conservative party went into the recent U.K. General Election with a “manifesto” that proposed the creation of a new, censored Internet that would aim to make Britain the “global leader in the regulation of the use of personal data and the internet.”

Photo: ISIS