The Origin of Censorship Software
Censorship software originated from political think tanks that refer to themselves as "Counter Violent Extremists" (CVEs). Many CVEs have modified and renamed content moderation techniques, but the initial and predominant developer is Jigsaw, a CVE owned by Google. With the data advantages of Google Search & YouTube, Jigsaw has formidable advantages in the collection of personal information online.
Jigsaw partnered with the New York Times on "content moderation" for the newspaper's social media pages1 and to test Jigsaw's first program, Perspective API.2 At the time, the program simply deleted or hid comments that clients found disagreeable. The client could be involved in that process or allow the program to completely automate the process based on keywords and phrases. Comments could even be deleted or hidden before ever being published on comment sections. Hiding the comments has the advantage of providing obscurity to the client and prevents the likelihood of user scrutiny.
As this text-based or speech-based AI was improved, it expanded to include images and video as well as text. It could be implemented on entire websites or platforms, or even specific pages and profiles of those sites. This program works without informing the users whose content is hidden or deleted.
Surprisingly, marketing videos or “case studies” of Perspective API exist, though some have been deleted recently.
Jigsaw has a 2nd program called Moderator, which is also open-sourced and hiding in plain sight.3 Jigsaw's Moderator was also a tool developed in partnership with the New York Times, making this the second case of the New York Times social media pages being the testing grounds for censorship software.
Moderator is a text-based AI "that leverages Perspective to prioritize comments." Not only is the CVE deleting comments with Perspective API but is also emphasizing other comments with Moderator, taking it from the realm of censorship (to stop some language) to indoctrination (to force other language).
Jigsaw partnership with New York Times. (2016). https://www.youtube.com/jigsaw
Jigsaw. "Perspective API". (2024). https://www.perspectiveapi.com/how-it-works/
Github. "Moderator". (2017). https://github.com/conversationai/conversationai-moderator