Recognising emerging problems
Perth
Now/AAP Bulletin Wire, 12 March 2024:
New
rules for search engines will ban child abuse and terrorist content
in Australia but will also seek to prevent abuse images being created
by AI tools.
Google,
Bing, Yahoo and other search engines will be required to prevent
child sexual abuse and terrorist content appearing in search results
under a code introduced to govern the industry.
The
code will ban the companies' generative artificial intelligence tools
being used to produce deepfake versions of the offensive material in
one of Australia's first set of AI regulations.
The
eSafety Commission launched the Internet Search Engine Services Code
on Tuesday following months of negotiations with internet giants over
the measures that had to be changed after the launch of generative AI
tools.
The
code will come into place alongside five other online safety codes
covering areas from social media to app stores and will include
penalties of up to $780,000 a day for companies that fail to comply
with its provisions.
AI
experts welcomed the code but said more restrictions and
technological advances will be needed to stop the scourge of
artificial "class one material" online.
eSafety
Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the search engine code, created
under the Online Safety Act, was an important addition to stop the
spread of the "worst of the worst" content from being
widely seen or shared.
"It
helps ensure one of the key gateways to accessing material - through
online search engines - is closed," she said.
"It
will target illegal content and conduct, with significant enforceable
penalties if search engines fail to comply."
The
code dictates that search engines take "reasonable and proactive
steps" to prevent public exposure to illegal content such as
child abuse, pro-terrorism or extremely violent material, and provide
tools to report instances of it.
The
regulations also apply to "artificial intelligence features
integrated into the search functionality that may be used to
generate" illegal content - an addition Ms Ingram said had to be
added to ensure it dealt with all relevant risks.
"The
sudden and rapid rise of generative AI and subsequent announcements
by Google and Bing that they would incorporate AI functionality into
their internet search engine services all but rendered the original
code drafted by industry obsolete," she said.
"What
we've ended up with is a robust code that delivers broad protections
for children."
Search
engines will also be required to publish annual reports into illegal
material found and removed from their services.
University
of NSW AI Institute chief scientist Toby Walsh said removing the most
offensive material from search engines was an important step and
preventing its creation using AI tools was equally vital.
"These
tools are, sadly, being used to generate such offensive and, in many
cases, illegal content," he said
"Ever
since generative AI tools became available, the (Australian Federal
Police) have seen a significant uptick in the amount of such
content... so it's definitely a real challenge."
Prof
Walsh told AAP banning illegal AI-generated images would become
easier after technological advances allowed content to be digitally
watermarked but, until then, regulations were crucial to taking
action against it.
"(The
code) doesn't fix the problem because there are lots of other ways of
accessing these tools ... but it's an obvious place to start,"
he said......
The
Daily Telegraph,
18 March 2024, p.3:
The
nation’s competition watchdog is putting search engines on notice,
announcing plans to scrutinise the competitive nature and quality of
popular services including Google and Bing.
The
inquiry into the search engine giants, announced today, will call for
consumers, businesses and experts to recall recent results and
consider whether recent changes to laws in Europe have affected the
results they see.
The
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has released an
issues paper as part of its Digital Platform Services Inquiry.
Under
the inquiry, the watchdog is continuing to put different aspects of
consumer technology offerings under the microscope.
The
new probe into search engines comes are new laws and regulations
under consideration in the UK and Europe will require search engines
to promote competition, ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.
“We’ve
seen new laws introduced overseas that place obligations on so-called
‘gatekeeper’ search engines and the emergence of new
technologies, like generative AI, that have changed the way consumers
search for information online and may be impacting the quality of the
service they are receiving,” she said.
The
ACCC wants to know whether the general public still believes search
engines are useful and whether they’ve noticed changes to the
quality of the results they see.
The
increased scrutiny arrives at a time when artificial intelligence is
set to impact the way search engines perform. AI-powered search
engines and tools are growing and these results aren’t influenced
by the same advertising constraints and requirements as older search
engines including Google. Social media platforms are also
increasingly being used as a method of searching or finding visual
results to queries, where answers to queries are often cut into
short, attention-grabbing videos infused with marketing strategies.
Those allegedly taking advantage of the situation
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
23 March 2024:
Liberal
Party press releases and its website are showing up on the Google
News tab as a source of information alongside queries about prominent
current affairs searches, calling into question the technology
giant's verification of news material, according to one of
Australia's senior-most media and data experts.
Links
to different media releases from the Liberal Party website show first
in response to search with keywords "Labor position nuclear",
"Labor and nuclear" or "Labor renewables" in
Google News at a time when federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is
pushing for Australia to adopt nuclear power.
Associate
professor of news and political communication at Monash University
Emma Briant said it "looks like a clear strategy by the Liberals
to get political content listed as news to increase its credibility
and visibility in the search engine".
Briant,
who was also involved in exposing the Cambridge Analytica Facebook
scandal, called on Google to be more rigorous in making sure material
marked as news came from verified news organisations.
"It's
too easy for those pushing persuasion and propaganda to take
advantage of the high level of trust the public places in Google News
- and it will only become more dangerous as campaigns can train AI to
produce articles that more effectively game the system," she
said.
The
Liberal Party directed questions about the referral to Google.
Google
declined to explain the Liberal Party's presence in the News tab but
pointed to its "publisher help centre", which deems all
publishers who comply with its news content policies eligible to
appear within Google News.
Anyone
generating news-related information, including press releases, can
apply to have a dedicated page on Google News.
On
its support page, Google says it uses "automated systems"
to compile its news index, saying it "algorithmically discovers
news content through search technologies".
Google
plays a key role in the news ecosystem in Australia and globally.
Google Search and News link people to publishers' websites more than
24 billion times each month, the company says.
Its
algorithm can be a deciding factor in a website's traffic and its
ability to drive revenue through advertising and subscriptions.
In
2021, the federal government implemented the news media bargaining
code as a tool to bridge the power imbalance between digital
platforms and news publishers.
Google
says it is one of the world's biggest financial supporters of
journalism. In Australia, it directly contributes more than $135
million to news organisations through deals agreed as part of the
bargaining code per year.....
Harvard
University's Nieman Lab for Journalism reported in February that
Google has tested removing its News tab from search results.
Search
engine optimisation (SEO) is an online practice that allows
publishers to target keywords that are relevant to a story in order
to attain a higher ranking in Google's search engine result pages.
New
trial versions of Google Search use its AI bot Bard to present a
summary response to a query, as opposed to links to relevant news
sites. Google says the features can help users distil complex
information into easy-to-digest formats. The features are yet to be
fully rolled out across Google Search.
A
spokesperson for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland also
declined to comment, saying "Google is best placed to explain
how content surfaces on its news product".
The
Australian Media and Communications Authority, which oversees the
code for misinformation and disinformation was contacted for comment.
And those who thrive on creating their own brand of misinformation
Sky
News, 22 March 2024:
Media
Research Centre Contributing Writer Stephanie Hamill discusses
researchers' discovery of 41 instances of election "interference"
by Google since 2008.
"There's
algorithms that seem to be in favour of the left," Ms Hamill
told Sky News host James Morrow.
"And
this report found that not only are they typically in favour of the
left but they’re in favour of the most liberal candidate.
"So
this goes as far back to 2008 and the researchers are saying that
actually, Google may have interfered in the 2008 primary between
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in support of Barack Obama.
“It’s
a manipulation of the algorithm and they’re saying that it’s
actually escalating and increasing as we go into 2024 in support of
Joe Biden.”
Note:
Media
Research Center states
of itself:
Since
1987, the Media Research Center has worked successfully to expose and
counter the leftist bias of the national news media, where now only a
historically low 32% of Americans say they trust media to be fair and
impartial. Alongside this effort, MRC leads the conservative movement
in combatting the left’s efforts to manipulate the electoral
process, silence opposing voices online, and undermine American
values.
This bad faith actor on the quasi-research centre scene was founded by L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative 'activist' whose son Leo Brent "Zeeker" Bozell IV 44, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, was found guilty of 10 charges, including five felonies as a result of his actions during the 6 January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol, when along with others he disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the 2020 presidential election.
