(Reuters) – Big tech companies pledged on Thursday to take further steps to tackle online extremism by removing more violent content and promoting media literacy among young users, as part of a summit at the White House.
Platforms like Youtube, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and Facebook, a subsidiary of Meta Platforms, have come under fire for years for allowing hate speech, misinformation and violent rhetoric to thrive on their services. .
Earlier Thursday, Joe Biden called on Americans to fight racism and extremism during a White House summit.
YouTube said it would expand its extremism policies to remove content glorifying violent acts.
The video streaming site already prohibits incitement to violence, but videos promoting militiamen involved in the January 6 storming of the US Capitol show flaws in its existing policies.
In a report published in May, the Tech Transparency Project information center said it found 435 pro-militia videos on YouTube, including 85 posted since the January 6 attack. Some of these videos gave training tips, including how to conduct guerrilla-style ambushes.
YouTube spokesman Jack Malon wouldn’t say if the platform would change its approach to this type of content under the new policy, but said the update allows it to expand its law application.
YouTube also said it would launch a media literacy campaign to teach young people to spot manipulative tactics used to spread misinformation.
Microsoft has said it will make a more affordable basic version of its tools available to schools and small organizations to help them prevent violence.
Meta announced that he would partner with researchers from the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
(Reporting Sheila Dang in Dallas and Katie Paul in Palo Alto; French version Alizée Degorce, editing by Kate Entringer)