Has Isis been destroyed on the Internet?
Recruiting and radicalising supporter online could soon become a thing of the past for the Islamic militant group.
Radicalising and recruiting members online could soon become a thing of the past for Isis as the UK government cracks down on propaganda.
New software developed by Home Office is able to detect 94% of Isis propaganda without the need for human verification. Artificial Intelligence is capable of scanning millions of videos and audio files and has an accuracy rating of 99.99%.
At the current rate, human input would only be needed for one in every 20,000 suspicious files. According to the Evening Standard, Isis uses 400 different sites to upload content to the Internet. The biggest sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, already use artificial intelligence to detect Isis propaganda. The new software will be put to use by smaller sites such as Vimeo and pCloud.
Amber Rudd, Home Office secretary, told the Evening Standard: "Over the last year we have been engaing with internet companies to make sure that their platforms are not being abused by terrorists and their supports."
"I have been impressed with their work so far following the launch of the Global Internet Forum to Counter-Terrorism, although there is still more to do, and I hope this new technology the Home Office has helped develop can support others to further and faster," Rudd said.
"The purpose of these videos is to incite violence in our communities, recruit people to their cause and attempt to spread fear in our society. We know that automatic technology like this can heavily disrupt the terrorists' actions, as well as prevent people from ever being exploited to these horrific images."
Speaking to the Independent, ASI Data Science chief executive Dr Marc Warner said companies would need to get on board to make the software effective. "Lone-wolf attacks are hard to spot with conventional surveillance - it is a difficult problem if someone is radicalised in their bedroom," Warner said.
"The way to fight that is to cut propaganda off at the source. We need to prevent all these horrible videos every getting to the sort of people who can be influenced by them."
