Watching YouTube
April 16, 2014 by Henry Benjamin
Read on for article
The Online Hate Prevention Institute has launched a new initiative inviting the community members to register for access to an online system which will lodge complaints of hate content on YouTube.
The OHPI invites you to register by clicking here. Once accepted the reader simply enters the URL of the offending video into a form and OHPI does the rest.
As the project opens stage one OHPI CEO Dr Andre Oboler told J-Wire: “In stage one the system is only handling reports about YouTube videos. Once stage one is publicly available (not just available to the beta users) we will start working on stage 2.
In stage 2 we will expand the system so it also handles:
- YouTube user accounts
- Facebook pages
- Facebook groups
- Facebook users
- Facebook images
- Twitter tweets
- Twitter users
We are moving as quickly as we can given our budget constraints to both complete testing and refinement of stage one, and to start on stage two. If another major donor stepped forward we could easily double our pace of work. We are also waiting to hear back on a grant application for government funding which would allow us to extend the reporting beyond antisemitism. We would like to get reports on hate against a wide range of communities, but this requires additional work both to expanded the scope of the software and to liaise with the communities affected and learn more about categorize the types of hate they face online.
The idea for this software was first pitched in 2008. It took until 2011 before we could get the support to start designing it, and then until 2014 before we could really start work on it. In that time the problem of online hate has grown exponentially and many lives, particularly those of children who are the primary users of social media, have been lost as a result. While this first stage is relatively simple, and fairly limited, the ultimate system we are building is revolutionary and will greatly change the way society deals with this problem. It will empower users, inform governments and hold social media companies to account. I wish we had the financial support to move forwards against this growing threat far more quickly, but I am also very grateful that we are making some real progress getting this solution built.
The scheme allows for complaints to be automatically lodged with YouTube and triggers off a follow-up mechanism monitored by OHPI. The complainants retain their incident report in their dashboard and are kept in the loop as to YouTube’s response and subsequent action.
To make a donation to support this work, go to www.ohpi.org.au/donate . Major donors interested in supporting this important work, should contact OHPI.
