ADL to Take on Cyberhate with New Silicon Valley Center
- By Elisa Meyer --
- 16 Mar 2017 --
ADL open Silicon Valley center to combat cyberhate
Jonathan Greenblatt, the Chief Executive Officer of Anti-Defamation League (ADL) made an announcement that his organization will open a center in Silicon Valley. The intention was spoken during a panel discussing “The State of Hate” in South by Southwest film festival (SXSW) tech confab on March 12. The ADL’s Silicon Valley center will focus on cyberhate[/tweetit], society and technology.
ADL to Take on Cyberhate with New Silicon Valley Center[/tweetthis]
ADL will use technology to the hilt and also hire experts to monitor and analyze harassment and hate speech. It will be also used to minimize such deviant behavior over the internet. This facility is scheduled to open towards San Francisco's southern ramparts. It is planned he project will start soon-anytime between three months and six months. Seed funding was provided by Omidyar Network, the philanthropic investment firm headed by Pierre Omidyar. The latter is known in the technology world as a person who founded eBay. ADL declined to disclose the quantum of investment. If Greenblatt is to be believed, the amount is in the region of six figures.
The center will employ a number of strategies in its fight against abuse over the internet. To do this, it will draw the learning and experiences distilled from ADL's 30 years of monitoring, combating and tracking hate on both private and public web. The ADL will author its own reports from the collected data. It will also offer insights to policy makers in the government and beyond. It will also stop and expose particular cases of cyberbullying and online harassment.
@ADL_National to build cyber warfare unit, deal with online anti semitic attacks in keeping up with the times https://t.co/4JdFOPCx6x
— Gil (@GilAllcar) March 15, 2017
In a media interview, Greenblatt said from the time Donald J. Trump was elected to the presidency, the virtual world has witnessed a massive increase of anti-Semitism, racism and Islamophobia. Hate speech has proliferated. Millions of tweets espousing anti-Semitism are sent out every day. The CEO of ADL told the media person that his organization is the pioneer in an era of civil rights. The new center's founding director will be Brittan Heller, who formerly worked in the Justice Department. He presently leads anti-cyberhate efforts of ADL. This center is regarded as last chapter in ADL's long drawn out fight against hate in the cyberworld. The organization hired Heller to make sure that ADL makes a presence in Silicon Valley. According to Greenblatt, the ADL center can be regarded as a perfectly natural extension of the constructive work ADL has been doing for many years now.
Resources
RELATED NEWS
