Stanford CIS

Why the Islamic State leaves tech companies torn between free speech and security

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"“You want to live in a world where people have access to news — in other words, documentary evidence of what is actually happening,” said Andrew McLaughlin, a former Google executive and chief U.S. technology officer who now is a partner in the tech and media start-up firm Betaworks in New York. “And an ISIS video of hostages being beheaded is both an act of propaganda and is itself a fact. And so if you’re a platform, you don’t want to suppress the facts. On the other hand, you don’t want to participate in advancing propaganda.

“And there is the conundrum.”"

Published in: Press , social media , Free Speech , Privacy