saying anything on the internet. So, giant tech and social media platforms have powerful tools strictly created to eliminate harmful words.
The problem appears in smaller companies. They don’t have the power Google, Meta, or X have. These giants have strict policies against harmful behavior. Information that violates the policy is immediately removed. These giants are continuing to improve. Recently, Meta updated its hate speech policy. Now it's time for smaller companies to step in the right direction.
Google Jigsaw is here to help those smaller online platforms protect themselves from those terrorist attacks. Jigsaw was created in 2016 and develops tools that prevent or address misinformation and online hate speech. Jigsaw created an Open Source tool called Altitude.
Altitude is a tool created with Tech Against Terrorism and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). Firstly introduced in November of 2023, Google Jigsaw is now handing Altitude to Tech Against Terrorism to continue the good work and further improve the tool.
This is helpful, especially because Europe’s Digital Services Act legislation is stringent. Not only the posting of harmful content is a violation of the law but also hosting such content is prohibited by the law. The small and medium online platforms don’t have the time or power to tackle those attacks on their own.
The tool can be used by any company. The code for the Open Source tool can be found on GitHub. Smaller businesses can self-host the tool under an Apache 2.0 license.
Altitude relies on trusted databases from the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform and GIFCT to identify problematic content. Those databases help point out the “terrorist and violent extremist content”(TVEC). Then the Open Source platform provides the smaller online platforms an overview of their content. The posts are categorized based on the priority of the action.
This preview allows the moderator to review the content and take action as fast as possible on the most harmful posts. The inappropriate posts are not automatically removed but the Google Jigsaw Open Source platform is flagging them. This brings them to the attention of the moderator faster.
The online platforms interested in the tool can join the Tech Against Terrorism Network. They will further receive support from the company, such as guided installation, testing, feedback, and special services for members.
The tool is now functional only in English. Jigsaw and Tech Against Terrorism revealed they want to make it accessible to other languages as well.
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