back to article Bold stance: Microsoft says terrorism is bad

Microsoft is enacting a new policy to remove terrorist content from its consumer services. The Redmond software giant said that the new terms and conditions for its hosted services will bar any content containing graphic violence or supporting material for any group considered a terrorist organization by the United Nations …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy..."

    That's not what the Window 10 privacy policy says.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

    1. NotBob
      Holmes

      The United Nations, per the text...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @"The United Nations, per the text..."

        I think no terrorist on the sanctions list carries a handy label, so more likely its anyone who expresses views that could be construed by anyone as sympathetic directly or indirectly to a terrorist cause on the list. A far broader definition.

        Sympathizing with the legitimate goals of the moderates in those groups is a good way to reduce the extremism. It gives them a less extreme path to that goal. And in contrast treating moderates like terrorists pushes them out into the extremes. i.e. anti-radicalization programs, isolate groups for surveillance and removal of free speech which drives more extremism.

        Diffuse the bomber, not the bomb.

    2. a_yank_lurker

      @ moiety - I see the same major problem, who is defining what as terrorism? I think the knee jerk reaction is great they are doing something but the more subtle question is who the authoritative source for what constitute terrorism? Truthfully, some of the groups/agencies they might use are lacking in integrity that any list they produce will have a political bias depending on what the PHBs want.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Team America: World police, obviously.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

      Well, there's a US organisation that advocates carrying guns everywhere - even in primary schools - and advocates shooting as a solution for just about all threats. A lot of politicians are inhibited from saying what they think about it because of what its members might do - as happened to one of them in Arizona.

      So Microsoft will be hypocritical if they don't ban the NRA.

      1. Gray
        Devil

        Re: Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

        Simples: just go back to the archives of the House UnAmerican Activities committee, as led by Senator Joe McCarthy, and follow their guidelines. Communism, Terrorism... all the same, right?

        "our actions will always be consistent with the rule of law and with our belief in our users' rights to privacy, freedom of expression and access to information," Right! Unless, of course, it involves reading Lenin, or closely examining the root causes of Third World unrest. "Access to information" should never permit study of subversive materials!

      2. selina.davis
        FAIL

        Re: Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

        @ Voyna i Mor

        The US; against abortion, loves a school shooting.

    5. bill.laslo

      @moiety

      which list would you prefer them to work from then? Your own, I presume?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I saw that it was a UN list and -perusing the list- there are some unarguably naughty people on there who totally deserve the moniker. The majority, though, were uncommented. There's several concerns with this:

        → The UN does some good stuff; but it is also a massive tangle of bureaucracy; which means that if you were to find yourself on the list by error, it would be immensely hard to find someone accountable and get the error corrected. And people have been labelled terrorists when they aren't.

        → Again, who decides? One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and all that. Let's take a topical example; that of trying to bury e-cigarettes by Big Baccy/Pharma/Whatever. If the legislation goes through and is enforced as written (doesn't seem too likely, thanks to the House of Lords), a significant number WILL die as a direct result of that. Attempting to get those rules passed just to make a few quid and knowing that people will die if it comes off -to my mind- is a terrorist act. I've referred to the people responsible as a "bunch of evil cunts" or something similar, which I'm pretty sure counts as hate speech by many definitions. Who's the terrorist and who decides?

        → Which organisations get to propose additions to the list and what failsafes/accountability is there?

        → Being blacklisted by Bing isn't really going to put much of a dent in anyone's day. But there's a very disturbing possibility of scope creep here.

        1. 1Rafayal
          FAIL

          So you didn't read all the information that was on the page that the link takes you to?

          You know, the page that answers your questions on how things are submitted to the list? And how things are shortlisted for addition?

          For example, your point about big pharma and tobacco, well I say point but I will go with it anyway. These clearly are not terrorist groups, even the most ardent of social justice warrior would have a hard time trying to prove that they were, so they wouldn't get in.

          And people being labeled a terrorist when they are not? Well, I would much rather the plod pick me up for terrorism and make the mistake instead of agonising over if I am a terrorist or not. It wouldn't take a great deal of time for them to realise that no, I am not a terrorist. And lets face it, they wouldnt just read the list then pop round in a panda car to pick me up, would they?

          As for the individuals with no comments listed next to them, well they all share one similar piece of info - they were added on the 27th of June 2003 in Iraq. What could that mean I wonder, instead of me thinking about it for, ooh 30 seconds, lets come up with some silly little points that might help back me up.

          Or... how about they were all arrested, or whatever, 4 months after the start of the Iraq War and their details were added en masse to the list because they were part of the Iraqi government or some such other apparatus connected to the regime there.. What a massive leap of faith that takes.

          As for scope creep, you are obviously trying to say that people or groups will be added to the list when they are not terrorists. This of course, is nonsense. If you had read the page you will have seen the links related to de-listing, i.e. how people are taken off the list and the reasons why this could happen. Above that, you would also see a link that takes to you the reasons why people and groups are added to the list in the first place.

          Stick to Microsoft bashing.

          1. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

            "And people being labeled a terrorist when they are not? Well, I would much rather the plod pick me up for terrorism and make the mistake instead of agonising over if I am a terrorist or not. It wouldn't take a great deal of time for them to realise that no, I am not a terrorist. And lets face it, they wouldnt just read the list then pop round in a panda car to pick me up, would they?"

            Yeah.. Riiiiight.

            No smoke without fire, as the say. You think the junta cares about you?

            Off you go to the dungeon. Better safe than sorry.

          2. selina.davis

            why rely on fact and evidence when you can stir up a good old pot of fear and uncertainty?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "supporting"

          I would have thought that a bigger problem than the UN list itself is the concept of "supporting material for any group considered ...". There's a huge range of possible interpretations there, all the way from "it's OK to express support for (some of) the aims and methods of a banned organisation provided there's a disclaimer stating that you don't actually support the organisation itself nor wish to encourage anyone else to" to "if you mention organisation X in any way other than in quoting official government propaganda then your video will be deleted" and "if anything you say bears a passing resemblance to something a member of X might have said (though we can't point you at the alleged original because that would be illegal) then you will be banned".

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      RE: Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

      Well, ultimately its defined by the programmers who'll set up MS's filters.

      And unless MS's programmers are somehow superhumanly better than anyone else's, judging by the poor quality of other content blocking things such as porn filters and keyword blockers (ever tried Googling "Breast feeding group in Scunthorpe"?) we can expect it to be a cock up to some degree or other.

      Using the word "Bombastic" in a document? Expect a black helicopter on your front lawn within the hour. Taking an unusual interest in obviously Jihadi-related material like mathematics (along the lines of this kind of thing), MS will be phoning the FBI within minutes.

      MS == Policeman?

      Of course I'm being flippant, but it does raise a difficult question. If MS (or anyone else) ever finds anything, are they going to tip off the FBI or the local equivalent?

      If they don't, and a bomb subsequently goes off somewhere and kills a lot of people, MS would look pretty stupid and culpable. In fact if someone planning a terrorist act had put compromising material up on One Drive (or wherever) and had then noticed that MS had deleted it, they might take that as a cue to bring their plot to fruition ASAP "whilst they still can".

      Either way, if all MS did was delete or block the material without raising concerns with law enforcement agencies, they may as well not bother, and arguably we'd all be worse off as a result. So a positive detection is going to have to result in further actions bearing a close resemblance to law enforcement.

      And if they do tip off the FBI it's never going to be a clear cut thing. No filter software for such things can ever be completely reliable. So who is going to manually examine 'detected' material to see if there really is a case to be investigated further? Microsoft? In which case "oh crap" is the thought that springs to mind. Also, I doubt they would want that corporate responsibility... The FBI? In which case, where's the warrant, and why is that any different philosophically to the situation we had before where the agencies were (reportedly) quietly helping themselves to everyone's data anyway?

      Safeguards?

      Also, if MS (or anyone else) are going to start acting as 'policemen', what safeguards are there going to be to protect those who get picked up by some shonky filtering code written by the cheapest best programmers money can hire? This needs to be sanely organised in cooperation with the rest of the industry and with law enforcement agencies, not done piecemeal like this by a company with more of an eye on the marketing aspect.

      1. bill.laslo

        Re: RE: Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

        Or, instead of all those words; microsoft has a list that is maintained by someone else. All they need to do is make sure they have an updated version of the list and police themselves.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: RE: Terrorist content as defined by who, exactly?

          "Or, instead of all those words; microsoft has a list that is maintained by someone else. All they need to do is make sure they have an updated version of the list and police themselves."

          No, that doesn't work completely. Sure, it'll help stop access to existing known content, but that's not really the problem here. It won't stop stuff being written and created afresh. With MS "guaranteeing privacy" you're basically saying that anything new created on MS's network won't come to the attention of the people who can generate that list you're referring to. And so it remains in circulation until it's finally noticed by someone who matters. So that doesn't exactly help. There's been plenty of criticism of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube for failing to keep hate speech and media off their networks; I don't anticipate MS being any better.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good luck

    They already have to comply with a US list of naughty people called the OFAC list.

    Unfortunately the list is compiled by a few dozen US agencies with no common standards. Each agency spells Arabic and Cyrillic names in their own different way

    It mixes people, companies, organisations and vessels.

    It assumes that entries with the same surname are related and assumes the second part of a name is the surname.

    It puts such scary penalties on anyone who breaks it that banks processing millions of transactions are forced to reject any that 'might' be linked to any of the 1000s of entries on the list.

    Korean pop star with a 3letter first name that is the same as the farsi abbreviation for LTD ? Then you are "linked" to the name of an Iranian weapons maker and your youtube revenue is blocked.

    Have a shipment arriving on a middle eastern boat called "Star of X" then you are linked to a terrorist vessel called "Star of Y" Note - all ships in the ME are called "Star of ...."

    Fortunately this doesn't apply to people the US don't think of as terrorists. So Ira Glass is safe, as is anyone attempting to open a Roth IRA.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good luck

      You need to list the news sources you read, as you don't get content like that from theGuardian.com anymore ;)

      1. selina.davis

        Re: Good luck

        yes but I dont think conspiracy theory websites count as sources, do they?

    2. bill.laslo

      Re: Good luck

      because I didnt beleive a word you said about this OFAC list, I went and tried looking for it.

      turns out there is no such thing.

      OFAC is the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the US. They do mantain a list called the Specially Designated Nationals list, apparently this is a list of people and organisations that the US and its citizens are not allowed to to business with.

      The list contains references to individual people, organisation as well as as aircraft and ocean going vessels.

      It also appears to be considered unconstitutional within the US as well, based on the fact that there is no oversight or control outside of the treasury.

      1. 1Rafayal

        Re: Good luck

        but this list isnt really the same as the UN list, is it?

        the SDN list is something that was issued to warn US business about who they were potentially doing business with and allows the US treasury to fine them (or worse) if they are caught to be knowingly working with them. Outside the US, its just a list of names, organisations and vehicles that may or may not be of use to people.

        The list used by the UN is made by UN member states adding to and removing from it on a regular basis, it is not governed by one US agency who has no oversight.

        As you pointed out, the SDN list is considered unconstitutional in the US by many people and the US Treasury appears to be loathe to remove anything from it, making it rather unwieldy.

        Either way, its perfect fodder for Internet conspiracy theory nuts.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Good luck

          The SDN list from the OFAC is generally known as the OFAC list

          It is of great value to those companies making data mining and data cleaning services and software, we made our first million after 911 from enabling a bunch of US banks to search their account holders against it.

          Before that we made slightly less money letting different bits of the UK security services manage to link Gaelic names in messages from then terrorists (now partners in a peaceful accord) to English names on arrests warrants.

  4. Brian Miller
    Joke

    "Redmond vows to pull terror content from services"

    So does this mean that Microsoft will pull Windows off the market?

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Re: "Redmond vows to pull terror content from services"

      Unfortunately, Winbloat is spyware/scumware not explicit terrorware unless one defines Slurp as terrorist organization (a bit of a stretch).

  5. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    "We have a responsibility to run our various Internet services so that they are a tool to empower people, not to contribute, however indirectly, to terrible acts," Microsoft said in announcing the policy. "We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and the right to access information."

    Aww, that's nice, dear.

    *cough* GWX *cough*

  6. tfewster
    Facepalm

    > will try to display links promoting anti-terror non-government organizations when returning queries for terrorism-related search results

    That's scary - Microsoft will show you what it thinks you should be looking at rather than what you asked for. Looking for terrorist content? Wouldn't you rather see some cute kittens instead? Searching for porn? Look, fwuffy kittens. Want to disable GWX? Kitteh!

    1. bill.laslo

      Maybe you should read the article and not just the headline.

      The article actually says that if people search for things about terrorism, they will be presented with information and links from ant-terrorist groups. You know, the kind of group you would actually go to if you were researching terrorist topics.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Good job it won't apply to Microsoft-UK

        You were searching for Iceland Air - this is a terrorist group under the governments "we need a way to grab money from people without a trial act".

        You are being redirected to the anti-terrorist Ulster Volunteer Force site.

      2. Alumoi Silver badge

        You're kidding, right?

        If I research a topic I need to listen to both sides. It's like researching Christianity and getting only Muslim topics.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      tfewster wrote:

      "...Searching for porn? Look, fwuffy kittens"

      U searched for porn & got pussy. Where's the problem?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yeah, right..

    We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that respects timeless values such as privacy, freedom of expression, and the right to access information.

    Well, let's adjust that to match reality:

    We also have a responsibility to run our services in a way that ignores timeless values such as privacy and freedom of expression, and preserves our right to access your information.

    There, fixed it for you. Otherwise you'd have to explain why you are still intercepting Skype.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tony Blair's statement after 911.

    I still vividly remember the day I heard the statement Post 911 by Tony Blair "Whatever the technical or legal issues about a declaration of war, the fact is we are at war with terrorism. What happened on Tuesday was an attack not just on the United States, but an attack on the civilised world."

    "The fact is we are at war with terrorism"';

    I immediately thought, what the fcuk does that mean exactly? Who defines "terrorism", it was a dangerous all emcompassing - wishy washy open ended caveat back then, as it is today.

    Giving a free reign to do anything they liked, irrespective of any laws.

    Which now seems to apply to how you interact with MS, using their OSs. I'm starting to believe much of the recent Telemetry updates to Windows 7 / Windows 10 haven't been mandated by Microsoft but by the NSA/USA Gov.

    To me its only words, far better to let People vent their frustrations in words via free speech/ "ideals", than let it build up into something more sinister, by supressing it. After all you don't have to listen or agree.

    Its very fine dangerous line and path going forward, this new approach by Microsoft, where the technology you're using also tries to define how you should think, what gets flagged when its read.

    1. Sgt_Oddball

      Re: Tony Blair's statement after 911.

      One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

      It's all such a subjective term. Ontop the reality that if you frustrate a group often and long enough they'll eventually get violent. The only people who seem to prove the exception is the north Koreans (though for how long who knows).

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Tony Blair's statement after 911.

        In the case of Blair possibly the same man, as soon as the check clears

      2. anonymous boring coward Silver badge

        Re: Tony Blair's statement after 911.

        "the reality that if you frustrate a group often and long enough they'll eventually get violen"

        I take it that by "frustrate" you mean "not convert to their particular branch of their particular religion"?

  9. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    I've got a little list...

    ... which is only going to get longer and longer...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I've got a little list...

      If you're the Graham Marsden on Linkedin in the 'Washington D.C. Metro Area' (‎Director of Marketing at Entrepreneurs' Organization-whatever that entails), then you probably have got a list and are adding to it!

      If not, you should get in touch with him, because that organisation sounds like a great Honeypot scheme to me, to gather together 'free thinkers' all in one place.

      1. Graham Marsden

        @AC - Re: I've got a little list...

        Nope, it sounds great, but I'm the Graham Marsden at Affordable Leather Products :-)

  10. King Jack
    Big Brother

    Ministry of Peace

    So researching terrorist groups to find out what they are mad about is not allowed? Once someone or thing is branded by whoever means we only get to hear one side of the story. This is indeed the Ministry of Peace.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Terrorism bad!...

    but Fire good.

  12. thomas k

    Bad for whom?

    It's certainly been a god-send for our governments, who get to use it as an excuse to strip us our basic democratic rights.

  13. MrTuK

    George Orwell's 1984 - that is all one has to say !

    Terrorism is fighting using terror, surely that is what the Governments of this day and age are doing anyway these days, lets see we want more surveillance I know lets say its to stop terrorism, and if that doesn't work lets throw in Pedophiles aswell as that usually gets the public behind us aswell !

    Hmmmm - we want to have access to everyone's phone and stop this damn encryption so lets use Terrorism and pedophiles again as that worked before yeah why not !

    What the hell would they do without all these nasty people about, I know people without TV licenses etc etc soon jaywalking, smoking, drinking, and finally breathing !

    Ah, actually thats not the final thing, its freedom to think and voice one's own opinion as that might be against the current Government of the day - shhheeeesh now I have been flagged !

    Yup a damn fine line indeed !

  14. kain preacher

    Why now? Did some 3 letter agency suggest it ?

  15. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    What about Azure (and AWS for that matter)

    How many dodgy sites are hosted up in the cloud?

    It would be ironic if an attack on, oh say a site in Washington State was masterminded and co-ordinated using Azure. Isn't it a possibility? Sure. Does it happed? Who knows.

    1. bill.laslo

      Re: What about Azure (and AWS for that matter)

      Given that microsoft and amazon are extremely fussy about what takes place on their infrastructure and where in the world it is being done, I would find it extremely unlikely that any terrorist group would be able to plan and execute any terrorist attack from the cloud. Especially in the case of AWS.

      If you put something up in there that they dont like, it will be taken down and it normally doesnt take long for them to do so. Bear in mind that things they dont already like are gambling, religion and terrorism (even from before this statement).

      1. oldcoder

        Re: What about Azure (and AWS for that matter)

        Depends entirely on how much money you wave at them...

        And given the poor security Windows has, just how many months/years will it take before they notice it has been taken over?

      2. selina.davis

        Re: What about Azure (and AWS for that matter)

        indeed. The terms of service for AWS and Azure and probably a lot of other cloud providers are extremely dense and hard to digest without some sort of legal representation at your side.

        but the gist of it comes down to this - if you host something illegal on their platform, or something they object to, it will get taken down PDQ. I have heard tales of organisations in the middle of a DDOS trying to put parts of their infrastructure out onto AWS to mitigate the attack, only for Amazon to 86 the whole account within minutes.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There is a problem with this...

    Trying to hide the truth that there are dangerous radical minded people out there does not make it go away. And even though I have no love lost for groups such as IS and other ones I do believe in free speech. Here's the culprit: if you think highly of free speech and the freedom to express oneselves then you should keep in mind that this includes both sides of the medal: topics and ideas you might agree with just as much as the opposite: stuff you totally oppose.

    And on that subject: let them express themselves, it would also act as a good source of information for us; a reminder as to why these people should be considered dangerous.

  17. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Big Brother

    ownCloud

    So does that mean ownCloud is for terrorists?

    Another thing which can be used to beat Apple with as iCloud doesn't magically find them?

    Anyone who buys external hard drives is obviously up to no good?

  18. Adam 1

    Hang on

    If they can already figure out the part of the problem that I thought was intractable (freedom fighter or terrorist), surely they can do better than to just shut down access? Why not just replace all the download links with GWX.exe? That'll stop people searching for it.

  19. Wzrd1 Silver badge

    I'll qualify an objection

    While I have a personal objection, nay, an actually rare hatred of extremism and especially terrorism in the extreme, I wonder.

    Precisely *how* does the originator of Microsoft Outrage and Internet Exploder want to implement a program to eliminate terrorism in their Bing searches. With US Government input and UN contribution.

    Sounds more like a contract thing, to be honest.

    Magic makes it so, micromanagement might make it possible, only needs three times the population of the planet to actually manage.

    Having lost a cousin on 9/11, friends that were especially close in our "war on terror", acquaintances aplenty to terrorism, suffice it to say, I especially loathe terrorists, to the point of considering summary execution. As that is more abominable than anything to me at all, it's saying a lot.

    Having personally dealt with terrorists, it's even more telling.

    One question, when does a ruling party get to rule to Google, via their contract, which party is now a terrorist organization and only their party results get displayed?

    As this question is one that I'll honestly consider picking up a firearm and calling my old fireteam together out of retirement, it's a damned good question.

    And I'm quite serious and as wanting such a thing as much as I'm willing to masturbate with a cheese grater to do so.

    But, the potential for abuse is so great, that I have to find both questions equal.

    Chocolate Factory my ass, it's now an Ex Lax factory.

    Although, I'm quite familiar with USG and Google links that are well over a decade old, with tailored appliances...

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