Latest news with #CCDH
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Concern as report finds misogynist content remains widely accessible to young people
Children and women's networks have expressed alarm after new research shows that misogynist videos featuring Andrew Tate are easily accessible to boys as young as 13 across Europe, including in Ireland. The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said it identified 100 of the most-viewed YouTube videos of Mr Tate promoting misogyny over the last year, attracting nearly 54m views. Researchers set up accounts in the US, Britain, Germany, and Ireland, and found that 98 out of the 100 videos in Ireland and Germany were accessible to boys as young as 13 (all in Britain and US). The report said Tate's promotion of hate and violence against women, led to YouTube, TikTok, and Meta closing his channels in 2022. 'However, thanks to subscribers of his online course 'The Real World', Tate has retained his presence on the platform through fan-made content,' the report said. ISPCC head of policy Fiona Jennings said: 'While Andrew Tate has been banned from publishing new content to YouTube, we are aware previous content continues to be widely available. To learn from the CCDH's research that this content is being served up to the accounts of 13-year-old boys is totally unacceptable.' She said research by Professor Debbie Ging in DCU found that recommender algorithms in social media platforms are 'rapidly amplifying toxic content'. From what is revealed to us through conversations on our Childline service, we believe there is a high probability that engagement with such content does effect boys and has a knock-on impact on girls. 'When we look at profiled engagements such as 'being forced to make or watch pornography' or 'being sexually harassed or exploited', between 70-90% are from children identifying as female with an age profile from 10-16 years of age.' National Women's Council violence against women coordinator Ivanna Youtchak said: 'It is very concerning to see the influence of traditionalist and misogynistic views in digital spaces on children and young people.' She said figures such as Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump promote views that men should dominate relationships, disregard women's opinions, and treat them as objects. 'Given the formative nature of this age group, they are more susceptible to adopting or experimenting with these harmful views,' Ms Youtchak said. 'It is therefore all the more important that school curricula address online harms, promote gender equality, and support young people to think critically. In addition, online platforms such as Youtube must be held accountable for the dangerous views they help to promote. A spokesperson for YouTube said: 'Andrew Tate's channels were terminated in 2022. Since then, we've removed hundreds of thousands of videos and terminated thousands of channels that have attempted to circumvent that original decision. "But as with all terminated users, not all content that features Andrew Tate will be removed. Only 11 videos from the CCDH report were shared with us to review — the majority have been removed for violating our Terms of Service, and we've terminated a number of the featured channels.'
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Yahoo
X Tests New Process To Reduce Political Division
This story was originally published on Social Media Today. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Social Media Today newsletter. You have to give credit where credit's due: While I don't believe that X's Community Notes approach is an effective way to combat the spread of misinformation in the app (at least as a sole measure, outside of internally-staffed moderation), I do respect that the Community Notes development team is continually working to implement new updates to address key concerns with the Notes system. Today, X's Community Notes team has announced a new experiment that will highlight content which sees agreement from users of differing political perspectives, in the hopes of reducing division and angst in the app. As you can see in this example, X will soon begin showing some users (Community Notes contributors to start with) prompts in the lower segment of some X posts that have been liked by people from opposing sides of the political spectrum. And if you tap through on the 'What do you think?' text, you'll be able to give the X team more insight as to what you like, or don't, about that specific post, which could help X address common elements of division on content. As explained by X: 'A subset of Community Notes contributors - representing a wide range of viewpoints - will occasionally see a new callout in the product. The callout shows based on early and limited Like signals on the post. Contributors will then be able to rate and provide more feedback about the post, helping to develop an open source algorithm that could effectively identify posts liked by people from different perspectives.' X says that these ratings won't affect a post's reach or visibility, but that: 'Depending on insights and feedback from the pilot test, it is possible that in the future, ratings could help spotlight posts that are liked by people who normally disagree.' Why is that important? Because political disagreement is a key flaw within the Community Notes system, with Community Notes only being displayed in the app when Notes assessors of differing political perspectives agree that a note is warranted. It's this proviso that's led to many, many Community Notes never being shown, to anybody, despite these posts often including blatant misinformation. Indeed, according to analysis conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) last year, 73% of submitted Community Notes relating to political topics are never displayed on X, despite them often providing valuable context, while another study conducted earlier this year by Spanish fact-checking site Maldita found that 85% of all Community Notes are never displayed to X users for the same reason. On some issues, users are never going to agree, and those often relate to divisive misinformation about hot-button political issues. That's worsened in the current landscape, where even the U.S. President is prone to amplifying questionable claims. As such, Community Notes often fails to keep people informed of relevant context, because people don't agree on the need for such on certain points. But maybe, if X is able to showcase more cases of agreement, that will ease disputes, and get people to view things in a more objective way. I mean, it seems unlikely that Republican and Democrat aligned voters are ever going to agree that the 2020 U.S. Election was manipulated or not, no matter evidence is produced, but maybe, if X can build more community alignment into the system, by showcasing such to respective users, that could at least open more conversation around more topics, as opposed to siloing people into their own echo chambers. It's worth a shot, and it's a fairly simple measure, at this stage, to better demonstrate relative agreement. And if X can somehow dilute this aspect, and ensure more relevant, valuable Community Notes are displayed in the app, that could be a big step forward in ensuring greater protection for X users.
Spectator
04-06-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Should we be above cancelling the cancellers?
I've been mulling over Marco Rubio's latest salvo in the Trump administration's assault on the Censorship-Industrial Complex. The US Secretary of State has announced he'll impose visa bans on foreign nationals judged to be censoring US citizens or US tech companies. And according to one news report, the ban will apply to their family members too. So who might be on this blacklist? Rubio hasn't named names, but I can think of a few candidates. Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)would be hard-pressed to deny his pro-censorship lobby group targets US citizens and US tech companies, because 'Centre' is spelt C-E-N-T-E-R, though the company was set up in the UK. To underline this, the Disinformation Chronicle published what purported to be a leaked internal CCDH document last year declaring that its strategic priority was to 'kill Musk's Twitter'. Ahmed, a British citizen, lives in Washington DC. Awkward. What about Morgan McSweeney? Sir Keir's chief of staff was the founder of the CCDH and only resigned in April 2020 after the organisation had launched a campaign against the spread of 'online misinformation' about Covid-19. Prior to that, it published a 'Don't Feed the Trolls' report, endorsed by Gary Lineker. (Isn't he a troll?) It recommended reporting 'trolls' to the social media companies that publish their posts, which sounds awfully like encouraging censorship, bearing in mind the CCDH's definition of a 'troll' is pretty broad. 'They don't want to 'win' or 'lose' an argument; they just want their ideas to be heard by as many potential converts as possible,' said the report.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Yahoo
Incel extremism doubles online amid Adolescence backlash
Incel extremism groups online have nearly doubled their membership amid a backlash against the Netflix hit show Adolescence. The largest active online incel platform has increased in size to 30,000 members from 17,000 in September 2022, according to research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The platform received a peak of more than 2.7 million visits in the first quarter of this year, with posts reflecting the misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic tendencies of participants. The forum is the online home for thousands of involuntary celibates or incels, who often express hostility to women and wider society, blaming them for their lack of sexual and romantic experiences. In an analysis by the CCDH of more than 650 posts from the forum's discussion threads, researchers found that one in four contained misogynist hate, racism or anti-Semitic conspiracies. A majority of posts expressed disapproval of the Netflix series, with forum members claiming the show's central character was too attractive to be an incel, or that the show's writers had failed to distinguish the subculture from misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate. Adolescence became Netflix's third most-watched English language show in its history. It follows a teenager who delves into online misogynist communities before murdering a female classmate. In its research, CCDH found that forum members posted about rape every 29 minutes, while 16 per cent of posts contained a misogynistic slur. Researchers also noted that the volume of posts on the forum had grown over time to reach a daily average of 2,340 posts. Imran Ahmed, CCDH's chief executive, warned that Incel ideology on the internet had grown and was not restricted to the dark web. 'The misogyny and extremism we saw three years ago have not only intensified, they've multiplied,' he said. 'Incel communities, where young men and boys are encouraged to hate and hurt women, are not hidden in the deepest recesses of the dark web – these communities of tens of thousands of men are operating in front of our children's eyes, accessible in the browsers of their cell phones. 'I encourage parents and schools to have deeper conversations with their children that span beyond the fictional show of Adolescence and into the reality of radicalisation facing young boys. 'This is an immediate crisis that demands more research and urgent action from policymakers, tech companies, and parents.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Telegraph
Incel extremism doubles online amid Adolescence backlash
Incel extremism groups online have nearly doubled their membership amid a backlash against the Netflix hit show Adolescence. The largest active online incel platform has increased in size to 30,000 members from 17,000 in September 2022, according to research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The platform received a peak of more than 2.7 million visits in the first quarter of this year, with posts reflecting the misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic tendencies of participants. The forum is the online home for thousands of involuntary celibates or incels, who often express hostility to women and wider society, blaming them for their lack of sexual and romantic experiences. In an analysis by the CCDH of more than 650 posts from the forum's discussion threads, researchers found that one in four contained misogynist hate, racism or anti-Semitic conspiracies. A majority of posts expressed disapproval of the Netflix series, with forum members claiming the show's central character was too attractive to be an incel, or that the show's writers had failed to distinguish the subculture from misogynist influencers such as Andrew Tate. Adolescence became Netflix's third most-watched English language show in its history. It follows a teenager who delves into online misogynist communities before murdering a female classmate. In its research, CCDH found that forum members posted about rape every 29 minutes, while 16 per cent of posts contained a misogynistic slur. Researchers also noted that the volume of posts on the forum had grown over time to reach a daily average of 2,340 posts. Imran Ahmed, CCDH's chief executive, warned that Incel ideology on the internet had grown and was not restricted to the dark web. 'The misogyny and extremism we saw three years ago have not only intensified, they've multiplied,' he said. 'Incel communities, where young men and boys are encouraged to hate and hurt women, are not hidden in the deepest recesses of the dark web – these communities of tens of thousands of men are operating in front of our children's eyes, accessible in the browsers of their cell phones. 'I encourage parents and schools to have deeper conversations with their children that span beyond the fictional show of Adolescence and into the reality of radicalisation facing young boys. 'This is an immediate crisis that demands more research and urgent action from policymakers, tech companies, and parents.'
