(New York, NY) – Counter Extremism Project (CEP) Senior Advisor and Dartmouth College Computer Science Professor Dr. Hany Farid, the world’s leading authority on digital forensics and hashing technology, was interviewed on June 5 by CNN’s Jake Tapper about the eGLYPH technology and the reluctance of Internet and social media companies to utilize it. In an editorial in the Sacramento Bee on the same day, Congressman Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley, pointed to CEP’s eGLYPH technology as a better way forward in the battle to eliminate online extremist content.  

CEP unveiled eGLYPH in June 2016. The new technology can detect known extremist images, video, and audio files for immediate and accurate removal. It is based on existing “robust hashing” algorithms, which Dr. Farid developed almost a decade ago and which are widely used today to combat child pornography online.

CNN: “We just saw a report from the EU last week that showed that more than 50 percent of the reports for take down notices to these companies are not being satisfied. So if they have technology to solve this problem, why is the content so easily available? So I’m not buying the story. If the technology is there, fantastic. If it’s our technology or somebody else’s technology, we don’t care. This is not a money-making adventure. We want to develop technology that allows the Internet to be open and free and accessible, while mitigating the harm, and I don’t think they are doing enough to mitigate the harm and we are seeing that in a real way. In the child pornography space, it took years and years and years of pressure from legislators, from advertisers, from the media and from the public for them to act. Left to their own devices, they don’t want to filter out this content, it is not in their interest.”

Sacramento Bee: “Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents the Silicon Valley, responded to May’s comments by urging that she visit Silicon Valley, and offered a sensible alternative. Just as software has been deployed to prevent the dissemination of child pornography, Khanna notes, Dartmouth College computer scientist Hany Farid has developed software that could help stop the spread of extremist videos. More effort and money ought to be invested in such efforts.”