White Extremism Faces a Subversive Foe Online: Google Ads

I recently searched for information on controversial groups and found mostly information on the opposite of the groups I was looking for. This makes me think that methods used to control, say, citizens in China are now being used on a worldwide basis to control all of us. What if I was looking for information on pro-Slavery propaganda before the Civil War? Will I soon be unable to find evidence that there ever was such propaganda? This makes me think that efforts are underway to falsify history. It is a scary process.

This is censorship and delivering false info. I do not agree with people that have hate in their hearts. I have a problem with distorting the truth or reporting people researching antisocial topics. It is one more step down the slippery slope towards a police state.

If you criticise Islam you are an extremist. If you are against replacement of native population with people from 3rd world you are also extremist. Is that really so? I would like to help 3rd world countries so they don't need to leave their homes. But allow them to just come to America is no solution. You are maybe helping a few of them. But and the rest of them? Instead of weapons why not spend in bringing water, energy and basic and training education for people in the interior of countries like Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, etc?

Because of their prominence in our consciousness, it almost seems that the U.S. has cornered the market in hoards of hate-filled sub-humans and groups, who intend to destroy our peace, our security, our prosperity, and ultimately our country. They are the ones who threaten civil war, and who perpetrate violent terrorism, across the land, at the behest of our illegitimate president. Instead of detaining honest, needy, hopeful asylum seekers, maybe we should be detaining, restraining, and medically treating, these far more dangerous murderous individuals, for our own national well being. I believe I'd vote for that.

Too bad this doesn't always work, though I appreciate the effort. I'm convinced that hate crimes are supported in this country in several ways. 1. Our lax gun laws that allow criminals to buy guns legally. 2. Allowing hate speech online without any counterbalance. 3. A president who says hateful things and calls haters "very fine people." Among others.

God forbid, if my young and impressionable son was seduced by the dark side, I'd appreciate having this fail safe operating. Although I agree with other readers, tech companies should offer the service for free, since they've often facilitated the original problem.

A while back, maybe a year, I looked up “Turner Diaries” to find out what it was about after having heard it mentioned repeatedly in the news. My basic take on the story, and others like it (I also looked up other books, but can’t remember now what they were) is that there is a threatened, powerless minority of “pure people” who are faced with annihilation because everyone who is not them is out to get them. Somehow, by the end of the book they magically overcome this oppression and go on to murder all who do not look like them or who do not agree with their values and actions, and then establish a “truly free” society for themselves. I guess I don’t understand how the people who accept this drivel think. Then again, if one accepts this nonsense it’s probably because they were already predisposed to the ideas contained. It’s like the man who committed murder at the Chanukah celebration the other day in New York. He looked up Hitler online, but he already kept anti-Semitic notes. He was just looking for excuses and affirmations of his own evil thoughts. I was not won over by the plot of the “Turner Diaries,” and I’m not sure that anyone who already has evil in mind will be won over by being redirected, especially considering that there is plenty of writing and air time against this hatred already. If they have not seen their hatred for what it is already, I’m not sure that redirection will work either.

"Clicking on the ad would pull up a YouTube playlist ..." Playlists have an associated account, yet the article fails to say how that account is named or described. IOW, is this counter-propaganda clearly identified as such? BTW, a search for "moonshot cve" on Youtube didn't find anything like the ads being described in the article. But it did find a video purporting to be of people speaking out *against* CVE.

We all know war (for now) is conducted on the internet and social media. This is a shrewd, necessary defensive move -- like levees against flood, like troops protecting against the barbarians at the gate. Except it is taking the form of education or re-education. This is brilliant, but it is also obvious. One wonders why it has taken so long and hopes for a thousand other interventions of reason, of damage control into toxic technology.

The key sentence in this article is the quote of the guy from RAND, Todd C. Helmus: It's just an ad campaign. We civil libertarians can breathe easier. Presumably we could still see the "good stuff" from a woo-woo search string by scrolling down past the proposed happy-talk hits. And hey, Google is a business; it's free to manipulate us any way it wants. It's worth noting in this context that Google is already heavily into the nanny thing. Compare search completion displays for the search strings "How to kiss " and "How to kill ". For the former, I get a list that begins "someone/well/wikihow/at school..." For the latter...nothing.

Hooray for what Moonshot CVE are doing, but what a shame that it costs so much money. This is big business, considering the ad sellers are for-profit. I don't imagine that the Fairness Doctrine required private foundations to raise millions of dollars to present alternate viewpoints on the mass media of its time.

This is great, and much needed! We need to get dramatically more proactive to counter online extremism and hatred. Tech companies are amoral and will take no action or minimal action until they are heavily regulated - hopefully coming soon.

I understand why some commenters think this is manipulation or a threat to our democracy, but it is my understanding that this operates the same as any other advertisement. Moonshot watches your search history, analyzes your data, and provides similar information based on its data collection. Multi-million dollar companies purchase our data to advertise products to us. Apps like Yelp continuously track our location to provide us recommendations based on our Google data. Nothing we do on the internet is private or free of surveillance. Moonshot is trying to correct a problem we couldn't anticipate 10 years ago. The reality is that white supremacists are being radicalized on the internet. Facebook continues to neglect this and our elected officials are slow to enact change. Although I don't trust the private sector, I'm glad someone is attempting to fix the problem. If Starbucks can buy my data and advertise the closest coffee shop to me based on my location, and am not offended if Moonshot is using the same method to defuse domestic terrorists.

"The efficacy is difficult to assess, not least because its creators cannot exactly gather a focus group of white supremacists to ask how the method affected their thinking." That's nonsense. Focus group participants can be paid, and they can be recruited from appropriate demographic regions or online forums. More importantly, the ads should also be assessed by people who do NOT espouse a certain ideology. That would reveal whether the ads are perceived as biased, insincere, preachy, etc.

Fighting white supremacy begins with really integrating the schools, and having young children interact with other non-white kids. And the parents will benefit too! The next step is funding awesome after school activities for this diverse group so they can get to know each other , bond, and learn to Value each other as friends. Mandatory public service, either military or civilian, can also help people Mingle and learn there is nothing to fear from each other.

What about black extremism? We’re seeing much more of black than white extremism in NY

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Yes, this effort is commendable, but the potential for misuse also exists. It is censorship, plain and simple. As the algorithms of the software become more refined, what's to stop them from redirecting people to sites and videos that are done to encourage social conformity? I could easily see the Chinese adopting this, directing people who are looking for liberty to sites that would tell them not to protest the government, of course the Communist Party only has your best interests in mind, etcetera. Might be useful in Hong Kong about now. Or in the western part of the country to keep any Uighurs who are dismayed with the current persecution subdued. We all thought that social media would bring a new dawn of enlightened discourse. We've since found out it's another tool that can be used for good or ill purpose. This software is no different.

Yup, raise the voices of virtue above hate. Implement creative models and speak up every day with patience, eloquence, and respect. Spread the word.

Where to start... Why do we so easily transfer our democracy and it’s core belief in our collective right to oversee power in our country? Behavior modification is the profit golden goose of the internet. To counter behavior modification which supports extremism with behavioral modification which supports [ ] is in itself dangerous. Who decides what fills that blank? After we’ve dealt a blow to extremists who are violent, anti-Semitic, etc (all important things to fight), we will have a privately run, at least partially publicly financed infrastructure to modify behavior (Google et al are already doing this extensively). What if we have a leader who advocates the free press as an enemy of the State? Or that ignorance is strength (eg “I love ignorant people, they vote for me”) - what and who do you think will then fill the blank? Danger makes us blind to the implications of how we fight that danger. Software is a tool. Democracy is our right. To quote a Harvard professor “Who decides? Who decides who decides?” That is the most important element of our protecting ourselves and our Democracy. If we don’t decide, if private companies decide, then we will fall to extremists as we strive to fight them. They will simply be different extremists - the $6000 a suit kind.

Went to Moonshot CVE website - no wonder they are having problems raising enough money to be effective in US. Website is opaque, ultra-chic, and non-informative.

Please let us know how we can help fund these efforts in the US. Thank you for all that you do, Moonshot CVE and NYT.

Best stop, Internet censorship. Let’s just use Chinas internet so we can all be free of bad thoughts.

Sounds like a great idea. Let new info into the echo chamber of hate these people live in.

Suppose we were in a shooting war right now against someone like Hitler and social media was directly contributing to his propaganda efforts, wouldn't they immediately be severely regulated or shut down altogether? There are innocent casualties in all wars, and if it were decided that Facebook, Twitter and Reddit needed to be among them, what of it?

Why is Google insisting on payment for this effort? While they are under no obligation to indulge every goodwill redirection project, they are also under no obligation to refuse all. Call it an act corporate charity but they, along with Facebook and other potential sources of white supremacist inspiration, should be willing to forgo the click-through revenue generated by aspiring Neo Nazis.

It is a shame that people cannot believe and search for anything they want, without interference. Land of the free? I think not.

I wonder how much money is made by google from hate filled searches. A company with a motto that is (or was) “do no evil” should offer these counter-advertisements for free.

What a smart, worthwhile program! Sounds like a program deserving of federal dollars.

Digital advertisers and click bait bolsterers use these very techniques everyday to win top spots in Google search results. Tricking people into being exposed to content that subverts or even briefly comes between them and their search for violent extremist materials has merit and seems fair. Even if it’s only a momentary diversion, it’s worth a try. Measuring its effectiveness will be another challenge.

With so much hate and vitriol on the internet, this is a wonderfully positive story to end this decade. I'm thrilled my government is on board with it.

If it helps prevent even one attack it will be worth it. I hope they are successful in their efforts.

This sounds great and I really hope the US will embrace this. It would be awesome if they could also deter misinformation like anti-vax or right wing conspiracy theories.

The Times has recently done a great job of tackling issues surrounding the online cesspool. Bravo, likewise, Moonshot. Such tools should also be used in the fight against child exploitation, with a view towards leading people out before the worst happens. Rebounding from the quoted 'boycott', furthermore, these tools may also be deployed directly in the chatrooms and on the message boards of the so-called dark web.

I'm not for certain but is this much different from a non democratic approach in other countries. Weekend do these programs start to redirect us from a black lives matter protest or human rights! Just seems good ideas today are ultimately used against us by those who can afford to pay.