NZ SHOOTER VIDEO IS EXCUSE FOR EXPANDING SECRET BIG TECH CENSORSHIP EFFORTS - "BLOCKADE"
https://www.wired.com/story/platforms-centralized-censorship/
A clue - the big social platforms are using hashes of digital files to create real-time "suppression list" of images and videos (((they))) want to censor.
Memes aren't easily "read" by computers yet. BUT once fingerprinted (a "hash" is basically a digital fingerprint) - and then added to the GIFCT database (see below) and marked as "censored" (or whatever) - it's immediately "machine readable" and can be suppressed automatically across multiple big social platforms.
To circumvent this sort of censorship scheme, one needs to alter the digital file (usually in a minimal way), so that the files new hash no longer matches the old hash - but it basically looks and acts exactly the same for human consumption.
Most "hashes" I know of changes significantly with even a minor change in file content.
To change an image's hash (a meme), it could be as easy as changing a pixel in the image, resizing, re-applying compression, applying a filter, directly editing the file header in some minor way, etc…
If the "hashing" algo is more sophisticated than the ones I'm familiar with, bigger changes to the file may be required. Sophisticated hashes take time (in additional CPU cycles), so if they are hashing "everything" as it comes across the wire - they are probably using a simple algo to match for it… even if their initial algo has more time to pick the file apart in detail.
—
related copypasta from pb
Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube Working on ‘Global Censorship Database’
Social media platforms and Big Tech companies have been slowly working to censor content on their platforms more efficiently.
Emma Llanso, Director of Free Expression at the Center for Democracy and Technology, wrote in an op-ed for Wired that the response to the New Zealand mass shooting in March brought the internet to a terrifying reality. Tech companies have only emphasized more “increasingly centralized and opaque censorship of the global internet.”
Llanso pointed out that Facebook’s announcement detailing plans of countering terrorism is already taking steps towards automatic censorship. The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, composed of Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube, was launched in 2017 to help sites regulate themselves and remove content that could potentially be illegal. However, the forum has “a shared database of hashes of files identified by the participating companies to be “extreme and egregious” terrorist content.”
Facebook wrote in a blog post on March 18 that it was adding more content to this database. The company stressed “industry cooperation” and wrote that it helpfully “identified abusive content” on other sites.
But Facebook was not alone: Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote that he was interested in building a “safe search engine” that “blocked the accessing of such content at the point when people attempt to view and download it.” Smith emphasized “healthier online environments,” and said that “it doesn’t help when online interaction normalizes in cyberspace standards of behavior that almost all of us would consider unacceptable in the real world.”
Llanso wrote that the hash database suffered from a complete lack of transparency and accountability. “No one outside of the consortium of companies knows what is in the database,” she said. “People whose posts are removed or accounts disabled on participating sites aren’t even notified if the hash database was involved.”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/corinne-weaver/2019/04/19/facebook-microsoft-twitter-youtube-working-global