Gadgetory

well big hot-button topic today something you're gonna care about whether you are a geek or a regular civilian and it turns out that alphabet that's Google's parent company has now gotten into the business of telling you and me what to think when it comes to Isis and terrorism well you may or may not agree with their message and Google certainly hopes that you don't but Isis and its followers have proven to be much more tech savvy than other terrorist groups they have managed to indoctrinate hordes of new recruits via social media and Google has been working hard on countering them it's called the redirect method and Google is now preparing its release to North America the redirect method created by alphabets subsidiary jigsaw looks for keywords users commonly search for when they're looking to learn more about Isis and other terrorist groups along with delivering their search results redirect methods presents potential recruits with counter programming in the form of YouTube channels and videos meant to steer people away from extremism so who decides what's an extremist whose extreme is there an elected body of officials who decide what's extreme no we're talking Google is going to decide what's extreme you see some problems with that pretty scary I mean it's cliche but it's the truth one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter I lived in other countries for an extended period of time that a really different culture and I can tell you I learned something really valuable we are not as more civilized and culturally superior and more educated here like we think we are compared to some other more developing countries we have a lot to learn from them and this is one of these cultural things we only believe what the news media tells us that so-and-so is bad so once those extreme but what we do is not bad an extreme it's a hard thing and so when you give the kind of power to Google like they have here to decide what people see that's gonna Forge thoughts and opinions it's absolutely terrifying so here's more on how it will work during an eight week pilot the redirect method searched over 1,700 keywords and targeted about 320 thousand people believed to be at imminent risk of Isis indoctrination those individuals were shown ads that sought to refute the terrorist groups propaganda including personal accounts from youtubers who managed to escape Isis claimed territory now it isn't just combating Isis propaganda as the program heads to the States jigsaw hopes redirect method will help steer potential recruits away from domestic terror groups also although this may strike some is eerily close to thought policing and social engineering jigsaw says they aren't trying to forcibly guide people's thoughts per se jigsaws Yasmin green head of research and development said that quote the branding philosophy for the entire pilot project was not to appear judgmental or moralistic but really to pique interests of individuals who have questions questions that are being raised and answered by the Islamic state oh no no no that is just some watered-down diplomatic way to say we're gonna control what you think but it's ok because it's for a good cause think back to the late 90s for those of you who are living at that time there was some conspiracy theories when the internet really broke out and became mainstream saying you know what the Internet's gonna be used by the governments to watch you if they don't like your political band or political thoughts they're gonna watch and track you Wow the Snowden revelations told us no it's much worse than that they're watching everyone everywhere all the time so now the question is if Google is doing this and they're telling you they're doing it what are they doing that they're not telling you what could they do with this information besides just protecting us from Isis well you have a different political view boom we can redirect to try and shape your political views that suits Google's needs you have different economic views business views well we can steer what you see to favor Google and Google's interests it's a slippery slope it's dangerous you shouldn't like it you should be upset about it educate yourself think for yourself let me know what you think in the comments below I think it's safe to say that pretty much everyone hates day to day admin work that's why our beloved sponsor freshbooks has made it ridiculously easy to use their cloud accounting software whether you need easy invoicing online payments or time track fresh book has fantastic solutions for you you can even use your Android device to take a snap of your receipts and have fresh books manager expenses automatically for a 30-day unrestricted free trial with no credit card required just go to fresh ebooks.com forward slash Android and enter android authority in the how did you hear about a section that's fresh books calm forward slash Android