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Are you looking to create engaging faceless short videos for platforms like YouTube or TikTok but want to avoid the hassle of complex video editing? This article will walk you through how to automate the entire process using OpenAI, ElevenLabs, and MoviePy. By the end of this tutorial, you'll know how to automatically generate visuals and voiceovers for short videos based on any script. Whether you’re creating educational content, storytelling, or meme videos, this workflow will save you tons of time. Prerequisites Before getting started, you’ll need: API keys for both OpenAI (for generating visuals) and ElevenLabs (for voiceovers).
Basic Python knowledge.
MoviePy and other required Python libraries installed (moviepy, openai, elevenlabs, etc.). Step 1: Setting Up API Keys import openai
from elevenlabs import ElevenLabs

# Set up your OpenAI and ElevenLabs API keys
openai.api_key = "your_openai_api_key"
elevenlabs_client = ElevenLabs(api_key="your_elevenlabs_api_key") Start by getting API keys from OpenAI and ElevenLabs. Replace the placeholders in the code with your actual API keys. Step 2: Preparing the Script Your video starts with a story or script. You can replace the story_script variable with the text you want to turn into a video. Here’s an example script about Dogecoin: story_script = """
Dogecoin began as a joke in 2013, inspired by the popular 'Doge' meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog. It unexpectedly gained a massive following thanks to its community's charitable initiatives, eventually evolving into a legitimate cryptocurrency with support from Elon Musk.
""" The script will be split into sentences to match each visual and audio segment. Step 3: Generating Images with OpenAI’s DALL-E For each sentence, we generate a corresponding image using OpenAI’s DALL-E model. def generate_image_from_text(sentence, context, idx):
    prompt = f"Generate an image without any text that describes: {sentence}. Context: {context}"
    response = openai.images.generate(
        model="dall-e-3",
        prompt=prompt,
        size="1024x1792",
        response_format="b64_json"
    )

    image_filename = f"images/image_{idx}.jpg"
    with open(image_filename, "wb") as f:
        f.write(base64.b64decode(response.data[0].b64_json))
    return image_filename This function sends each sentence to DALL-E and saves the generated image. We ensure the generated visuals match the video's theme. Step 4: Generating Voiceovers with ElevenLabs Once we have the visuals, we need voiceovers. ElevenLabs converts each sentence into speech. def generate_audio_from_text(sentence, idx):
    audio = elevenlabs_client.text_to_speech.convert(
        voice_id="pqHfZKP75CvOlQylNhV4",
        model_id="eleven_multilingual_v2",
        text=sentence,
        voice_settings=VoiceSettings(stability=0.2, similarity_boost=0.8)
    )
    audio_filename = f"audio/audio_{idx}.mp3"
    with open(audio_filename, "wb") as f:
        for chunk in audio:
            f.write(chunk)
    return audio_filename This function generates an audio file for each sentence. You can select different voice settings to customize the narration style. Step 5: Combining Audio and Video Next, we pair each image with its corresponding voiceover using MoviePy: from moviepy.editor import ImageClip, AudioFileClip

image_clip = ImageClip(image_path, duration=audio_clip.duration)
image_clip = image_clip.set_audio(audio_clip)
video_clips.append(image_clip.set_fps(30)) Each image is displayed for the duration of its audio clip, ensuring synchronization. Step 6: Applying Video Effects To make the video more dynamic, we apply zoom and fade effects to each image. For example, the apply_zoom_in_center effect slowly zooms into the center of the image: def apply_zoom_in_center(image_clip, duration):
    return image_clip.resize(lambda t: 1 + 0.04 * t) Other effects include zooming in from the upper part or zooming out. These effects are applied randomly to each clip to keep the video visually engaging. Step 7: Final Video Assembly We combine all video clips into one seamless video and add background music: final_video = concatenate_videoclips(video_clips, method="compose")
final_video.write_videofile(output_video_path, codec="libx264", audio_codec="aac", fps=30) Step 8: Adding Captions Captions improve video accessibility and engagement. We use Captacity to automatically add captions based on the audio. captacity.add_captions(
    video_file=output_video_path,
    output_file="captioned_video.mp4",
    font_size=130,
    font_color="yellow",
    stroke_width=3
) Step 9: Adding Background Music To finish the video, background music is added. The volume is reduced so that it doesn't overpower the narration. background_music = AudioFileClip(music_filename).subclip(0, final_video.duration).volumex(0.2)
narration_audio = final_video.audio.volumex(1.5)
combined_audio = CompositeAudioClip([narration_audio, background_music])
final_video.set_audio(combined_audio) Conclusion The GitHub repository for this project is available here. By using OpenAI and ElevenLabs, we’ve automated the creation of faceless videos from text. You can now quickly generate YouTube Shorts or TikToks without needing a camera or microphone. This automated process has allowed us to create a Faceless Shorts Video service on our Robopost software, offering content creators a seamless way to produce high-quality videos. Whether you are creating educational videos, short stories, or even meme-style content, this service handles everything from visuals to voiceovers with minimal effort. Now, you can focus on creativity and storytelling while Robopost handles the heavy lifting of video production. Happy creating! Are you looking to create engaging faceless short videos for platforms like YouTube or TikTok but want to avoid the hassle of complex video editing? This article will walk you through how to automate the entire process using OpenAI , ElevenLabs , and MoviePy . OpenAI ElevenLabs MoviePy By the end of this tutorial, you'll know how to automatically generate visuals and voiceovers for short videos based on any script. Whether you’re creating educational content, storytelling, or meme videos, this workflow will save you tons of time. Prerequisites Before getting started, you’ll need: API keys for both OpenAI (for generating visuals) and ElevenLabs (for voiceovers). Basic Python knowledge. MoviePy and other required Python libraries installed (moviepy, openai, elevenlabs, etc.). API keys for both OpenAI (for generating visuals) and ElevenLabs (for voiceovers). API keys Basic Python knowledge. MoviePy and other required Python libraries installed ( moviepy , openai , elevenlabs , etc.). moviepy openai elevenlabs Step 1: Setting Up API Keys import openai
from elevenlabs import ElevenLabs

# Set up your OpenAI and ElevenLabs API keys
openai.api_key = "your_openai_api_key"
elevenlabs_client = ElevenLabs(api_key="your_elevenlabs_api_key") import openai
from elevenlabs import ElevenLabs

# Set up your OpenAI and ElevenLabs API keys
openai.api_key = "your_openai_api_key"
elevenlabs_client = ElevenLabs(api_key="your_elevenlabs_api_key") Start by getting API keys from OpenAI and ElevenLabs . Replace the placeholders in the code with your actual API keys. OpenAI ElevenLabs Step 2: Preparing the Script Your video starts with a story or script. You can replace the story_script variable with the text you want to turn into a video. Here’s an example script about Dogecoin : story_script Dogecoin story_script = """
Dogecoin began as a joke in 2013, inspired by the popular 'Doge' meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog. It unexpectedly gained a massive following thanks to its community's charitable initiatives, eventually evolving into a legitimate cryptocurrency with support from Elon Musk.
""" story_script = """
Dogecoin began as a joke in 2013, inspired by the popular 'Doge' meme featuring a Shiba Inu dog. It unexpectedly gained a massive following thanks to its community's charitable initiatives, eventually evolving into a legitimate cryptocurrency with support from Elon Musk.
""" The script will be split into sentences to match each visual and audio segment. Step 3: Generating Images with OpenAI’s DALL-E For each sentence, we generate a corresponding image using OpenAI’s DALL-E model. def generate_image_from_text(sentence, context, idx):
    prompt = f"Generate an image without any text that describes: {sentence}. Context: {context}"
    response = openai.images.generate(
        model="dall-e-3",
        prompt=prompt,
        size="1024x1792",
        response_format="b64_json"
    )

    image_filename = f"images/image_{idx}.jpg"
    with open(image_filename, "wb") as f:
        f.write(base64.b64decode(response.data[0].b64_json))
    return image_filename def generate_image_from_text(sentence, context, idx):
    prompt = f"Generate an image without any text that describes: {sentence}. Context: {context}"
    response = openai.images.generate(
        model="dall-e-3",
        prompt=prompt,
        size="1024x1792",
        response_format="b64_json"
    )

    image_filename = f"images/image_{idx}.jpg"
    with open(image_filename, "wb") as f:
        f.write(base64.b64decode(response.data[0].b64_json))
    return image_filename This function sends each sentence to DALL-E and saves the generated image. We ensure the generated visuals match the video's theme. Step 4: Generating Voiceovers with ElevenLabs Once we have the visuals, we need voiceovers. ElevenLabs converts each sentence into speech. def generate_audio_from_text(sentence, idx):
    audio = elevenlabs_client.text_to_speech.convert(
        voice_id="pqHfZKP75CvOlQylNhV4",
        model_id="eleven_multilingual_v2",
        text=sentence,
        voice_settings=VoiceSettings(stability=0.2, similarity_boost=0.8)
    )
    audio_filename = f"audio/audio_{idx}.mp3"
    with open(audio_filename, "wb") as f:
        for chunk in audio:
            f.write(chunk)
    return audio_filename def generate_audio_from_text(sentence, idx):
    audio = elevenlabs_client.text_to_speech.convert(
        voice_id="pqHfZKP75CvOlQylNhV4",
        model_id="eleven_multilingual_v2",
        text=sentence,
        voice_settings=VoiceSettings(stability=0.2, similarity_boost=0.8)
    )
    audio_filename = f"audio/audio_{idx}.mp3"
    with open(audio_filename, "wb") as f:
        for chunk in audio:
            f.write(chunk)
    return audio_filename This function generates an audio file for each sentence. You can select different voice settings to customize the narration style. Step 5: Combining Audio and Video Next, we pair each image with its corresponding voiceover using MoviePy : MoviePy from moviepy.editor import ImageClip, AudioFileClip

image_clip = ImageClip(image_path, duration=audio_clip.duration)
image_clip = image_clip.set_audio(audio_clip)
video_clips.append(image_clip.set_fps(30)) from moviepy.editor import ImageClip, AudioFileClip

image_clip = ImageClip(image_path, duration=audio_clip.duration)
image_clip = image_clip.set_audio(audio_clip)
video_clips.append(image_clip.set_fps(30)) Each image is displayed for the duration of its audio clip, ensuring synchronization. Step 6: Applying Video Effects To make the video more dynamic, we apply zoom and fade effects to each image. For example, the apply_zoom_in_center effect slowly zooms into the center of the image: apply_zoom_in_center def apply_zoom_in_center(image_clip, duration):
    return image_clip.resize(lambda t: 1 + 0.04 * t) def apply_zoom_in_center(image_clip, duration):
    return image_clip.resize(lambda t: 1 + 0.04 * t) Other effects include zooming in from the upper part or zooming out. These effects are applied randomly to each clip to keep the video visually engaging. Step 7: Final Video Assembly We combine all video clips into one seamless video and add background music: final_video = concatenate_videoclips(video_clips, method="compose")
final_video.write_videofile(output_video_path, codec="libx264", audio_codec="aac", fps=30) final_video = concatenate_videoclips(video_clips, method="compose")
final_video.write_videofile(output_video_path, codec="libx264", audio_codec="aac", fps=30) Step 8: Adding Captions Captions improve video accessibility and engagement. We use Captacity to automatically add captions based on the audio. Captacity captacity.add_captions(
    video_file=output_video_path,
    output_file="captioned_video.mp4",
    font_size=130,
    font_color="yellow",
    stroke_width=3
) captacity.add_captions(
    video_file=output_video_path,
    output_file="captioned_video.mp4",
    font_size=130,
    font_color="yellow",
    stroke_width=3
) Step 9: Adding Background Music To finish the video, background music is added. The volume is reduced so that it doesn't overpower the narration. background_music = AudioFileClip(music_filename).subclip(0, final_video.duration).volumex(0.2)
narration_audio = final_video.audio.volumex(1.5)
combined_audio = CompositeAudioClip([narration_audio, background_music])
final_video.set_audio(combined_audio) background_music = AudioFileClip(music_filename).subclip(0, final_video.duration).volumex(0.2)
narration_audio = final_video.audio.volumex(1.5)
combined_audio = CompositeAudioClip([narration_audio, background_music])
final_video.set_audio(combined_audio) Conclusion The GitHub repository for this project is available here. The GitHub repository for this project is available here. By using OpenAI and ElevenLabs, we’ve automated the creation of faceless videos from text. You can now quickly generate YouTube Shorts or TikToks without needing a camera or microphone. This automated process has allowed us to create a Faceless Shorts Video service on our Robopost software , offering content creators a seamless way to produce high-quality videos. Whether you are creating educational videos, short stories, or even meme-style content, this service handles everything from visuals to voiceovers with minimal effort. Faceless Shorts Video service Faceless Shorts Video service on our Robopost software Robopost software Now, you can focus on creativity and storytelling while Robopost handles the heavy lifting of video production. Happy creating!

How to Use ElevenLabs and OpenAI to Automate Faceless Shorts Video for YouTube and TikTok

Four Thousand Years of Blood, Snot, and Tears

চার হাজার বছরের রক্ত, স্নোট এবং অশ্রু

Viertausend Jahre Blut, Rotz und Tränen

Cuatro mil años de sangre, mocos y lágrimas

Quatre mille ans de sang, de morve et de larmes

चार हज़ार साल का खून, बलगम और आँसू

4000年にわたる血と鼻水と涙

4천년의 피와 콧물과 눈물

Quatro mil anos de sangue, ranho e lágrimas

Четыре тысячи лет крови, соплей и слез

Dört Bin Yıllık Kan, Sümük ve Gözyaşı

Bốn ngàn năm máu, nước mũi và nước mắt

四千年的血、鼻、泪

Reddit has implemented a new controversial API pricing plan that has killed many of the social media site’s best , Plenty of people are starting an exodus from the social media platform in search of greener . clients pastures There are now multiple different apps competing to cater to those who are looking for decent Reddit alternatives, and with this article, you can hopefully see three Reddit alternatives to try if you wish to make an exodus from the site or are simply curious to see what else is out there in terms of social aggregate sites. Squabbles One of those very interesting alternatives is a website by the name of that behaves like a combination of Reddit and Twitter as applications all rolled into one - something that might make both former Twitter users and lovers of Reddit enjoy this new kid on the block more than the older big tech websites they came from. Squabbles Squabbles.io is a new platform, and it is still in its infancy which means it has fewer users than Reddit currently, but there is a benefit due to its small size: the owners of Squabbles are more willing to listen to feedback from users than the larger sites. The developers behind this site are very willing to listen to community feedback and are actively working to improve the platform. On top of that, Squabbles has mobile apps that you can use on Android or iOS. You have - an early access app that you can use whether you are an Android user or somebody who has an iPhone. already Pulse You also have for Android only and for iOS only, so there are plenty of different options available! Tiff Calipso Many people, even those on , have liked Squabbles, and the only cons really seem to be how small the community currently is (so do not expect to get as many likes as you would on the average Reddit posts), and the fact that most of its mobile apps are in the early stages. Other than that, Squabbles is pretty viable! Reddit Lemmy Instead of being a single website connected by a single server farm and service, Lemmy is interesting in the fact that it is a federated network made from dozens of different instances and servers in a decentralized manner similar to Mastodon. This provides the benefit that Lemmy has a series of servers that integrate with one another (a practice that is known as federating), and this means that different moderation practices and default sets exist for each of the Lemmy communities. So, you can easily find a unique community with moderation practices and rules that you are comfortable with. You can join communities from various servers and interact with people. One of the main , lemmy.world, has an interface that is a mix of old reddit.com and the modern Reddit style without ads, so all of those are pros for many people. servers The only issues for the site are that Lemmy has a smaller community than Reddit, and it is described as being more difficult to join than signing up for traditional websites. However, just like with the other Reddit alternatives, these issues can potentially be improved in the future. Beehaw , there is a relatively new and small alternative that has some pretty nice content. The interface is described by Techradar as being nice and neat, and I would have to agree that it may feel much less cluttered than Reddit and other sites of this nature. Finally On top of that, Beehaw has a mission statement of working to avoid “hate speech” and “disinformation” that tends to be prevalent on these platforms. This allows Beehaw to have a very accepting environment with communities for things like neurodivergence and people of color and literature and gardening. These accepting communities can allow people to find places where they belong on the internet & locate their own interests, though more risky and NSFW content might be harder to locate here.

Discussing Three Reddit Alternatives After Reddit's API Decisions

A Short History of the World, by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE CRUSADES AND THE AGE OF PAPAL DOMINION THE CRUSADES AND THE AGE OF PAPAL DOMINION It is interesting to note that Charlemagne corresponded with the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, the Haroun-al-Raschid of the Arabian Nights. It is recorded that Haroun-al-Raschid sent ambassadors from Bagdad—which had now replaced Damascus as the Moslem capital—with a splendid tent, a water clock, an elephant and the keys of the Holy Sepulchre. This latter present was admirably calculated to set the Byzantine Empire and this new Holy Roman Empire by the ears as to which was the proper protector of the Christians in Jerusalem. These presents remind us that while Europe in the ninth century was still a weltering disorder of war and pillage, there flourished a great Arab Empire in Egypt and Mesopotamia, far more civilized than anything Europe could show. Here literature and science still lived; the arts flourished, and the mind of man could move without fear or superstition. And even in Spain and North Africa where the Saracenic dominions were falling into political confusion there was a vigorous intellectual life. Aristotle was read and discussed by these Jews and Arabs during these centuries of European darkness. They guarded the neglected seeds of science and philosophy. North-east of the Caliph’s dominions was a number of Turkish tribes. They had been converted to Islam, and they held the faith much more simply and fiercely than the actively intellectual Arabs and Persians to the south. In the tenth century the Turks were growing strong and vigorous while the Arab power was divided and decaying. The relations of the Turks to the Empire of the Caliphate became very similar to the relations of the Medes to the last Babylonian Empire fourteen centuries before. In the eleventh century a group of Turkish tribes, the Seljuk Turks, came down into Mesopotamia and made the Caliph their nominal ruler but really their captive and tool. They conquered Armenia. Then they struck at the remnants of the Byzantine power in Asia Minor. In 1071 the Byzantine army was utterly smashed at the battle of Melasgird, and the Turks swept forward until not a trace of Byzantine rule remained in Asia. They took the fortress of Nicæa over against Constantinople, and prepared to attempt that city. The Byzantine emperor, Michael VII, was overcome with terror. He was already heavily engaged in warfare with a band of Norman adventurers who had seized Durazzo, and with a fierce Turkish people, the Petschenegs, who were raiding over the Danube. In his extremity he sought help where he could, and it is notable that he did not appeal to the western emperor but to the Pope of Rome as the head of Latin Christendom. He wrote to Pope Gregory VII, and his successor Alexius Comnenus wrote still more urgently to Urban II. CRUSADER TOMBS IN EXETER CATHEDRAL Photo: Mansell This was not a quarter of a century from the rupture of the Latin and Greek churches. That controversy was still vividly alive in men’s minds, and this disaster to Byzantium must have presented itself to the Pope as a supreme opportunity for reasserting the supremacy of the Latin Church over the dissentient Greeks. Moreover this occasion gave the Pope a chance to deal with two other matters that troubled western Christendom very greatly. One was the custom of “private war” which disordered social life, and the other was the superabundant fighting energy of the Low Germans and Christianized Northmen and particularly of the Franks and Normans. A religious war, the Crusade, the War of the Cross, was preached against the Turkish captors of Jerusalem, and a truce to all warfare amongst Christians (1095). The declared object of this war was the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre from the unbelievers. A man called Peter the Hermit carried on a popular propaganda throughout France and Germany on broadly democratic lines. He went clad in a coarse garment, barefooted on an ass, he carried a huge cross and harangued the crowd in street or market-place or church. He denounced the cruelties practised upon the Christian pilgrims by the Turks, and the shame of the Holy Sepulchre being in any but Christian hands. The fruits of centuries of Christian teaching became apparent in the response. A great wave of enthusiasm swept the western world, and popular Christendom discovered itself. VIEW OF CAIRO Photo: Lehnert & Landrock Such a widespread uprising of the common people in relation to a single idea as now occurred was a new thing in the history of our race. There is nothing to parallel it in the previous history of the Roman Empire or of India or China. On a smaller scale, however, there had been similar movements among the Jewish people after their liberation from the Babylonian captivity, and later on Islam was to display a parallel susceptibility to collective feeling. Such movements were certainly connected with the new spirit that had come into life with the development of the missionary- teaching religions. The Hebrew prophets, Jesus and his disciples, Mani, Muhammad, were all exhorters of men’s individual souls. They brought the personal conscience face to face with God. Before that time religion had been much more a business of fetish, of pseudoscience, than of conscience. The old kind of religion turned upon temple, initiated priest and mystical sacrifice, and ruled the common man like a slave by fear. The new kind of religion made a man of him. The preaching of the First Crusade was the first stirring of the common people in European history. It may be too much to call it the birth of modern democracy, but certainly at that time modern democracy stirred. Before very long we shall find it stirring again, and raising the most disturbing social and religious questions. Certainly this first stirring of democracy ended very pitifully and lamentably. Considerable bodies of common people, crowds rather than armies, set out eastward from France and the Rhineland and Central Europe without waiting for leaders or proper equipment to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. This was the “people’s crusade.” Two great mobs blundered into Hungary, mistook the recently converted Magyars for pagans, committed atrocities and were massacred. A third multitude with a similarly confused mind, after a great pogrom of the Jews in the Rhineland, marched eastward, and was also destroyed in Hungary. Two other huge crowds, under the leadership of Peter the Hermit himself, reached Constantinople, crossed the Bosphorus, and were massacred rather than defeated by the Seljuk Turks. So began and ended this first movement of the European people, as people. Next year (1097) the real fighting forces crossed the Bosphorus. Essentially they were Norman in leadership and spirit. They stormed Nicæa, marched by much the same route as Alexander had followed fourteen centuries before, to Antioch. The siege of Antioch kept them a year, and in June 1099 they invested Jerusalem. It was stormed after a month’s siege. The slaughter was terrible. Men riding on horseback were splashed by the blood in the streets. At nightfall on July 15th the Crusaders had fought their way into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and overcome all opposition there: blood-stained, weary and “sobbing from excess of joy” they knelt down in prayer. THE HORSES OF S. MARK, VENICE Originally on the arch of Trajan at Constantinople, the Doge Dandalo V took them after the Fourth Crusade, to Venice, whence Napoleon I removed them to Paris, but in 1815 they were returned to Venice. During the Great War of 1914-18 they were hidden away for fear of air raids. Photo: D. McLeish Immediately the hostility of Latin and Greek broke out again. The Crusaders were the servants of the Latin Church, and the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem found himself in a far worse case under the triumphant Latins than under the Turks. The Crusaders discovered themselves between Byzantine and Turk and fighting both. Much of Asia Minor was recovered by the Byzantine Empire, and the Latin princes were left, a buffer between Turk and Greek, with Jerusalem and a few small principalities, of which Edessa was one of the chief, in Syria. Their grip even on these possessions was precarious, and in 1144 Edessa fell to the Moslim, leading to an ineffective Second Crusade, which failed to recover Edessa but saved Antioch from a similar fate. In 1169 the forces of Islam were rallied under a Kurdish adventurer named Saladin who had made himself master of Egypt. He preached a Holy War against the Christians, recaptured Jerusalem in 1187, and so provoked the Third Crusade. This failed to recover Jerusalem. In the Fourth Crusade (1202-4) the Latin Church turned frankly upon the Greek Empire, and there was not even a pretence of fighting the Turks. It started from Venice and in 1204 it stormed Constantinople. The great rising trading city of Venice was the leader in this adventure, and most of the coasts and islands of the Byzantine Empire were annexed by the Venetians. A “Latin” emperor (Baldwin of Flanders) was set up in Constantinople and the Latin and Greek Church were declared to be reunited. The Latin emperors ruled in Constantinople from 1204 to 1261 when the Greek world shook itself free again from Roman predominance. The twelfth century then and the opening of the thirteenth was the age of papal ascendancy just as the eleventh was the age of the ascendancy of the Seljuk Turks and the tenth the age of the Northmen. A united Christendom under the rule of the Pope came nearer to being a working reality than it ever was before or after that time. A COURTYARD IN THE ALHAMBRA Photo: Lehnert & Landrock In those centuries a simple Christian faith was real and widespread over great areas of Europe. Rome itself had passed through some dark and discreditable phases; few writers can be found to excuse the lives of Popes John XI and John XII in the tenth century; they were abominable creatures; but the heart and body of Latin Christendom had remained earnest and simple; the generality of the common priests and monks and nuns had lived exemplary and faithful lives. Upon the wealth of confidence such lives created rested the power of the church. Among the great Popes of the past had been Gregory the Great, Gregory I (590-604) and Leo III (795-816) who invited Charlemagne to be Cæsar and crowned him in spite of himself. Towards the close of the eleventh century there arose a great clerical statesman, Hildebrand, who ended his life as Pope Gregory VII (1073- 1085). Next but one after him came Urban II (1087-1099), the Pope of the First Crusade. These two were the founders of this period of papal greatness during which the Popes lorded it over the Emperors. From Bulgaria to Ireland and from Norway to Sicily and Jerusalem the Pope was supreme. Gregory VII obliged the Emperor Henry IV to come in penitence to him at Canossa and to await forgiveness for three days and nights in the courtyard of the castle, clad in sackcloth and barefooted to the snow. In 1176 at Venice the Emperor Frederick (Frederick Barbarossa), knelt to Pope Alexander III and swore fealty to him. The great power of the church in the beginning of the eleventh century lay in the wills and consciences of men. It failed to retain the moral prestige on which its power was based. In the opening decades of the fourteenth century it was discovered that the power of the Pope had evaporated. What was it that destroyed the naive confidence of the common people of Christendom in the church so that they would no longer rally to its appeal and serve its purposes? The first trouble was certainly the accumulation of wealth by the church. The church never died, and there was a frequent disposition on the part of dying childless people to leave lands to the church. Penitent sinners were exhorted to do so. Accordingly in many European countries as much as a fourth of the land became church property. The appetite for property grows with what it feeds upon. Already in the thirteenth century it was being said everywhere that the priests were not good men, that they were always hunting for money and legacies. The kings and princes disliked this alienation of property very greatly. In the place of feudal lords capable of military support, they found their land supporting abbeys and monks and nuns. And these lands were really under foreign dominion. Even before the time of Pope Gregory VII there had been a struggle between the princes and the papacy over the question of “investitures,” the question that is of who should appoint the bishops. If that power rested with the Pope and not the King, then the latter lost control not only of the consciences of his subjects but of a considerable part of his dominions. For also the clergy claimed exemption from taxation. They paid their taxes to Rome. And not only that, but the church also claimed the right to levy a tax of one-tenth upon the property of the layman in addition to the taxes he paid his prince. The history of nearly every country in Latin Christendom tells of the same phase in the eleventh century, a phase of struggle between monarch and Pope on the issue of investitures and generally it tells of a victory for the Pope. He claimed to be able to excommunicate the prince, to absolve his subjects from their allegiance to him, to recognize a successor. He claimed to be able to put a nation under an interdict, and then nearly all priestly functions ceased except the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and penance; the priests could neither hold the ordinary services, marry people, nor bury the dead. With these two weapons it was possible for the twelfth century Popes to curb the most recalcitrant princes and overawe the most restive peoples. These were enormous powers, and enormous powers are only to be used on extraordinary occasions. The Popes used them at last with a frequency that staled their effect. Within thirty years at the end of the twelfth century we find Scotland, France and England in turn under an interdict. And also the Popes could not resist the temptation to preach crusades against offending princes—until the crusading spirit was extinct. It is possible that if the Church of Rome had struggled simply against the princes and had had a care to keep its hold upon the general mind, it might have achieved a permanent dominion over all Christendom. But the high claims of the Pope were reflected as arrogance in the conduct of the clergy. Before the eleventh century the Roman priests could marry; they had close ties with the people among whom they lived; they were indeed a part of the people. Gregory VII made them celibates; he cut the priests off from too great an intimacy with the laymen in order to bind them more closely to Rome, but indeed he opened a fissure between the church and the commonalty. The church had its own law courts. Cases involving not merely priests but monks, students, crusaders, widows, orphans and the helpless were reserved for the clerical courts, and so were all matters relating to wills, marriages and oaths and all cases of sorcery, heresy and blasphemy. Whenever the layman found himself in conflict with the priest he had to go to a clerical court. The obligations of peace and war fell upon his shoulders alone and left the priest free. It is no great wonder that jealousy and hatred of the priests grew up in the Christian world. Never did Rome seem to realize that its power was in the consciences of common men. It fought against religious enthusiasm, which should have been its ally, and it forced doctrinal orthodoxy upon honest doubt and aberrant opinion. When the church interfered in matters of morality it had the common man with it, but not when it interfered in matters of doctrine. When in the south of France Waldo taught a return to the simplicity of Jesus in faith and life, Innocent III preached a crusade against the Waldenses, Waldo’s followers, and permitted them to be suppressed with fire, sword, rape and the most abominable cruelties. When again St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) taught the imitation of Christ and a life of poverty and service, his followers, the Franciscans, were persecuted, scourged, imprisoned and dispersed. In 1318 four of them were burnt alive at Marseilles. On the other hand the fiercely orthodox order of the Dominicans, founded by St. Dominic (1170-1221) was strongly supported by Innocent III, who with its assistance set up an organization, the Inquisition, for the hunting of heresy and the affliction of free thought. So it was that the church by excessive claims, by unrighteous privileges, and by an irrational intolerance destroyed that free faith of the common man which was the final source of all its power. The story of its decline tells of no adequate foemen from without but continually of decay from within. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. H. G. Wells (2011). A Short History of the World. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022, from https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11870/11870-h/11870-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE CRUSADES AND THE AGE OF PAPAL DOMINION

THE GREAT EMPIRE OF JENGIS KHAN AND HIS SUCCESSORS

The Evolution of Modern Medicine, by William Osler is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . here ARABIAN MEDICINE THE third and by far the strongest branch of the Greek river reached the West after a remarkable and meandering course. The map before you shows the distribution of the Graeco-Roman Christian world at the beginning of the seventh century. You will notice that Christianity had extended far eastwards, almost to China. Most of those eastern Christians were Nestorians and one of their important centres was Edessa, whose school of learning became so celebrated. Here in the fifth century was built one of the most celebrated hospitals of antiquity. Now look at another map showing the same countries about a century later. No such phenomenal change ever was made within so short space of time as that which thus altered the map of Asia and Europe at this period. Within a century, the Crescent had swept from Arabia through the Eastern Empire, over Egypt, North Africa and over Spain in the West, and the fate of Western Europe hung in the balance before the gates of Tours in 732. This time the barbaric horde that laid waste a large part of Christendom were a people that became deeply appreciative of all that was best in Graeco-Roman civilization and of nothing more than of its sciences. The cultivation of medicine was encouraged by the Arabs in a very special way. Anyone wishing to follow the history of the medical profession among this remarkable people will find it admirably presented in Lucien Leclerc's "Histoire de la medecine arabe" (Paris, 1876). An excellent account is also given in Freind's well-known "History of Medicine" (London, 1725-1726). Here I can only indicate very briefly the course of the stream and its freightage. With the rise of Christianity, Alexandria became a centre of bitter theological and political factions, the story of which haunts the memory of anyone who was so fortunate as to read in his youth Kingsley's "Hypatia." These centuries, with their potent influence of neoplatonism on Christianity, appear to have been sterile enough in medicine. I have already referred to the late Greeks, Aetius and Alexander of Tralles. The last of the Alexandrians was a remarkable man, Paul of AEgina, a great name in medicine and in surgery, who lived in the early part of the seventh century. He also, like Oribasius, was a great compiler. In the year 640, the Arabs took Alexandria, and for the third time a great library was destroyed in the "first city of the West." Shortly after the conquest of Egypt, Greek works were translated into Arabic, often through the medium of Syriac, particularly certain of Galen's books on medicine, and chemical writings, which appear to have laid the foundation of Arabian knowledge on this subject. Through Alexandria then was one source: but the special development of the Greek science and of medicine took place in the ninth century under the Eastern Caliphates. Let me quote here a couple of sentences from Leclerc (Tome I, pp. 91-92): "The world has but once witnessed so marvellous a spectacle as that presented by the Arabs in the ninth century. This pastoral people, whose fanaticism had suddenly made them masters of half of the world, having once founded their empire, immediately set themselves to acquire that knowledge of the sciences which alone was lacking to their greatness. Of all the invaders who competed for the last remains of the Roman Empire they alone pursued such studies; while the Germanic hordes, glorying in their brutality and ignorance, took a thousand years to re-unite the broken chain of tradition, the Arabs accomplished this in less than a century. They provoked the competition of the conquered Christians—a healthy competition which secured the harmony of the races. "At the end of the eighth century, their whole scientific possessions consisted of a translation of one medical treatise and some books on alchemy. Before the ninth century had run to its close, the Arabs were in possession of all the science of the Greeks; they had produced from their own ranks students of the first order, and had raised among their initiators men who, without them, would have been groping in the dark; and they showed from this time an aptitude for the exact sciences, which was lacking in their instructors, whom they henceforward surpassed." It was chiefly through the Nestorians that the Arabs became acquainted with Greek medicine, and there were two famous families of translators, the Bakhtishuas and the Mesues, both Syrians, and probably not very thoroughly versed in either Greek or Arabic. But the prince of translators, one of the finest figures of the century, was Honein, a Christian Arab, born in 809, whose name was Latinized as Joannitius. "The marvellous extent of his works, their excellence, their importance, the trials he bore nobly at the beginning of his career, everything about him arouses our interest and sympathy. If he did not actually create the Oriental renaissance movement, certainly no one played in it a more active, decided and fruitful part."(10) His industry was colossal. He translated most of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, Aristotle and many others. His famous "Introduction" or "Isagoge," a very popular book in the Middle Ages, is a translation of the "Microtegni" of Galen, a small hand-book, of which a translation is appended to Cholmeley's "John of Gaddesden."(11) The first printed edition of it appeared in 1475 (see Chapter IV) at Padua. Leclerc gives the names of more than one hundred known translators who not only dealt with the physicians but with the Greek philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers. The writings of the physicians of India and of Persia were also translated into Arabic. But close upon the crowd of translators who introduced the learning of Greece to the Arabians came original observers of the first rank, to a few only of whom time will allow me to refer. Rhazes, so called from the name of the town (Rai) in which he was born, was educated at the great hospital at Bagdad in the second half of the ninth century. With a true Hippocratic spirit he made many careful observations on disease, and to him we owe the first accurate account of smallpox, which he differentiated from measles. This work was translated for the old Sydenham Society by W.A. Greenhill (1848), and the description given of the disease is well worth reading. He was a man of strong powers of observation, good sense and excellent judgment. His works were very popular, particularly the gigantic "Continens," one of the bulkiest of incunabula. The Brescia edition, 1486, a magnificent volume, extends over 588 pages and it must weigh more than seventeen pounds. It is an encyclopaedia filled with extracts from the Greek and other writers, interspersed with memoranda of his own experiences. His "Almansor" was a very popular text-book, and one of the first to be printed. Book IX of "Almansor" (the name of the prince to whom it was addressed) with the title "De aegritudinibus a capite usque ad pedes," was a very favorite mediaeval text-book. On account of his zeal for study Rhazes was known as the "Experimentator." The first of the Arabians, known throughout the Middle Ages as the Prince, the rival, indeed, of Galen, was the Persian Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, one of the greatest names in the history of medicine. Born about 980 A. D. in the province of Khorasan, near Bokhara, he has left a brief autobiography from which we learn something of his early years. He could repeat the Koran by heart when ten years old, and at twelve he had disputed in law and in logic. So that he found medicine was an easy subject, not hard and thorny like mathematics and metaphysics! He worked night and day, and could solve problems in his dreams. "When I found a difficulty," he says, "I referred to my notes and prayed to the Creator. At night, when weak or sleepy, I strengthened myself with a glass of wine."(12) He was a voluminous writer to whom scores of books are attributed, and he is the author of the most famous medical text-book ever written. It is safe to say that the "Canon" was a medical bible for a longer period than any other work. It "stands for the epitome of all precedent development, the final codification of all Graeco-Arabic medicine. It is a hierarchy of laws liberally illustrated by facts which so ingeniously rule and are subject to one another, stay and uphold one another, that admiration is compelled for the sagacity of the great organiser who, with unparalleled power of systematisation, collecting his material from all sources, constructed so imposing an edifice of fallacy. Avicenna, according to his lights, imparted to contemporary medical science the appearance of almost mathematical accuracy, whilst the art of therapeutics, although empiricism did not wholly lack recognition, was deduced as a logical sequence from theoretical (Galenic and Aristotelian) premises. Is it, therefore, matter for surprise that the majority of investigators and practitioners should have fallen under the spell of this consummation of formalism and should have regarded the 'Canon' as an infallible oracle, the more so in that the logical construction was impeccable and the premises, in the light of contemporary conceptions, passed for incontrovertible axioms?"(13) Innumerable manuscripts of it exist: of one of the most beautiful, a Hebrew version (Bologna Library), I give an illustration. A Latin version was printed in 1472 and there are many later editions, the last in 1663. Avicenna was not only a successful writer, but the prototype of the successful physician who was at the same time statesman, teacher, philosopher and literary man. Rumor has it that he became dissipated, and a contemporary saying was that all his philosophy could not make him moral, nor all his physic teach him to preserve his health. He enjoyed a great reputation as a poet. I reproduce a page of a manuscript of one of his poems, which we have in the Bodleian Library. Prof. A.V.W. Jackson says that some of his verse is peculiarly Khayyamesque, though he antedated Omar by a century. That "large Infidel" might well have written such a stanza as His hymn to the Deity might have been written by Plato and rivals the famous one of Cleanthes.(14) A casual reader gets a very favorable impression of Avicenna. The story of his dominion over the schools in the Middle Ages is one of the most striking in our history. Perhaps we feel that Leclerc exaggerates when he says: "Avicenna is an intellectual phenomenon. Never perhaps has an example been seen of so precocious, quick and wide an intellect extending and asserting itself with so strange and indefatigable an activity." The touch of the man never reached me until I read some of his mystical and philosophical writings translated by Mehren.(15) It is Plato over again. The beautiful allegory in which men are likened to birds snared and caged until set free by the Angel of Death might be met with anywhere in the immortal Dialogues. The tractate on Love is a commentary on the Symposium; and the essay on Destiny is Greek in spirit without a trace of Oriental fatalism, as you may judge from the concluding sentence, which I leave you as his special message: "Take heed to the limits of your capacity and you will arrive at a knowledge of the truth! How true is the saying:—Work ever and to each will come that measure of success for which Nature has designed him." Avicenna died in his fifty-eighth year. When he saw that physic was of no avail, resigning himself to the inevitable, he sold his goods, distributed the money to the poor, read the Koran through once every three days, and died in the holy month of Ramadan. His tomb at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, still exists, a simple brickwork building, rectangular in shape, and surrounded by an unpretentious court. It was restored in 1877, but is again in need of repair. The illustration here shown is from a photograph sent by Dr. Neligan of Teheran. Though dead, the great Persian has still a large practice, as his tomb is much visited by pilgrims, among whom cures are said to be not uncommon. The Western Caliphate produced physicians and philosophers almost as brilliant as those of the East. Remarkable schools of medicine were founded at Seville, Toledo and Cordova. The most famous of the professors were Averroes, Albucasis and Avenzoar. Albucasis was "the Arabian restorer of surgery." Averroes, called in the Middle Ages "the Soul of Aristotle" or "the Commentator," is better known today among philosophers than physicians. On the revival of Moslem orthodoxy he fell upon evil days, was persecuted as a free-thinker, and the saying is attributed to him—"Sit anima mea cum philosophic." Arabian medicine had certain very definite characteristics: the basis was Greek, derived from translations of the works of Hippocrates and Galen. No contributions were made to anatomy, as dissections were prohibited, nor to physiology, and the pathology was practically that of Galen. Certain new and important diseases were described; a number of new and active remedies were introduced, chiefly from the vegetable kingdom. The Arabian hospitals were well organized and were deservedly famous. No such hospital exists today in Cairo as that which was built by al-Mansur Gilafun in 1283. The description of it by Makrizi, quoted by Neuburger,(16) reads like that of a twentieth century institution with hospital units. (16) "I have founded this institution for my equals and for those beneath me, it is intended for rulers and subjects, for soldiers and for the emir, for great and small, freemen and slaves, men and women." "He ordered medicaments, physicians and everything else that could be required by anyone in any form of sickness; placed male and female attendants at the disposal of the patients, determined their pay, provided beds for patients and supplied them with every kind of covering that could be required in any complaint. Every class of patient was accorded separate accommodation: the four halls of the hospital were set apart for those with fever and similar complaints; one part of the building was reserved for eye-patients, one for the wounded, one for those suffering from diarrhoea, one for women; a room for convalescents was divided into two parts, one for men and one for women. Water was laid on to all these departments. One room was set apart for cooking food, preparing medicine and cooking syrups, another for the compounding of confections, balsams, eye-salves, etc. The head-physician had an apartment to himself wherein he delivered medical lectures. The number of patients was unlimited, every sick or poor person who came found admittance, nor was the duration of his stay restricted, and even those who were sick at home were supplied with every necessity."—Makrizi. "In later times this hospital was much extended and improved. The nursing was admirable and no stint was made of drugs and appliances; each patient was provided with means upon leaving so that he should not require immediately to undertake heavy work." Neuburger: History of Medicine, Vol. 1, p. 378. It was in the domain of chemistry that the Arabs made the greatest advances. You may remember that, in Egypt, chemistry had already made considerable strides, and I alluded to Prof. Elliot Smith's view that one of the great leaps in civilization was the discovery in the Nile Valley of the metallurgy of copper. In the brilliant period of the Ptolemies, both chemistry and pharmacology were studied, and it seems not improbable that, when the Arabs took Alexandria in the year 640, there were still many workers in these subjects. The most famous of those early Arabic writers is the somewhat mythical Geber, who lived in the first half of the eighth century, and whose writings had an extraordinary influence throughout the Middle Ages. The whole story of Geber is discussed by Berthelot in his "La chimie au moyen age" (Paris, 1896). The transmission of Arabian science to the Occident began with the Crusades, though earlier a filtering of important knowledge in mathematics and astronomy had reached Southern and Middle Europe through Spain. Among the translators several names stand out prominently. Gerbert, who became later Pope Sylvester II, is said to have given us our present Arabic figures. You may read the story of his remarkable life in Taylor,(17) who says he was "the first mind of his time, its greatest teacher, its most eager learner, and most universal scholar." But he does not seem to have done much directly for medicine. The Graeco-Arabic learning passed into Europe through two sources. As I have already mentioned, Constantinus Africanus, a North African Christian monk, widely travelled and learned in languages, came to Salernum and translated many works from Arabic into Latin, particularly those of Hippocrates and Galen. The "Pantegni" of the latter became one of the most popular text-books of the Middle Ages. A long list of other works which he translated is given by Steinschneider.(17a) It is not unlikely that Arabic medicine had already found its way to Salernum before the time of Constantine, but the influence of his translations upon the later Middle Ages was very great. The second was a more important source through the Latin translators in Spain, particularly in Toledo, where, from the middle of the twelfth till the middle of the thirteenth century, an extraordinary number of Arabic works in philosophy, mathematics and astronomy were translated. Among the translators, Gerard of Cremona is prominent, and has been called the "Father of Translators." He was one of the brightest intelligences of the Middle Ages, and did a work of the first importance to science, through the extraordinary variety of material he put in circulation. Translations, not only of the medical writers, but of an indiscriminate crowd of authors in philosophy and general literature, came from his pen. He furnished one of the first translations of the famous "Almagest" of Ptolemy, which opened the eyes of his contemporaries to the value of the Alexandrian astronomy.(18) Leclerc gives a list of seventy-one works from his hand. Many of the translators of the period were Jews, and many of the works were translated from Hebrew into Latin. For years Arabic had been the learned language of the Jews, and in a large measure it was through them that the Arabic knowledge and the translations passed into South and Central Europe. The Arab writer whose influence on mediaeval thought was the most profound was Averroes, the great commentator on Aristotle. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Osler, William. 2006. The Evolution of Modern Medicine. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1566/1566-h/1566-h.htm#link2H_4_0019 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html Photo by on National Cancer Institute Unsplash

The Evolution of Modern Medicine: Chapter III - ARABIAN MEDICINE

Why Everyone Missed the Most Important Invention in the Last 500 Years

A rewarding close-up concatenated video of cute hummingbirds visiting your own backyard! The demo : Here is the reward. Look at the cute little hummingbirds! The hardware setup in the garden Hummingbird feeder Hummingbirds have long been a favorite for gardeners. Over the years, people have developed many varieties of bird-feeders to attract them to their backyards. Those design are pretty cool and can prevent bees from stealing the sugar water from hummingbirds. I use an off-the-shelf hummingbird feeder, . You can order it from Amazon using the link above but I get mine from a local Fred Meyer. Perky-Pet Pinch-Waist Glass Hummingbird Feeder 203CP (8oz) Camera To take close-up videos of hummingbirds, we need a small and high quality camera. I use an off-the-shelf , REMALI 4K Ultra HD Sports Action Camera. camera 3D printed camera mount on the hummingbird feeder At this point, the camera and the hummingbird feeder are still separate. So, I need to make custom hardware to secure the camera to the hummingbird feeder. Here is the model that I make, which is designed to have the camera facing down to take close-up videos. The model is uploaded to Google Drive . You can have various 3d view of it in your browser if you log in your Gmail first and then click the link above. here Bolts, nuts, string and rubber bands Finally, I use bolts and nuts(6mm diameter) to secure the camera mount on the hummingbird feeder and hang the mount on a stand in the backyard using a string. I also add some rubber bands to further secure the camera. Software : This is what we want from our software: to be able to extract frames that have hummingbirds in them. Determining whether there is any hummingbird in an image Deep learning and computer vision Very likely, hummingbirds only come to your bird-feeders for a few minutes a day. So, most of the video frames only captures the and are not interesting. It would be nice if there were a method to automatically detect, extract and concatenate frames in which hummingbirds are present. To do this, we need some computer vision techniques. background At first, I apply a pre-trained to the whole image and examine the likelihood of it being a hummingbird. However, it does not work well. It is probably because there are so many other things in the image and they confuse the classifier. RESNET Then, I note that the regions where hummingbirds show up in the images are normally the regions close to the flowers of the bird-feeder. So, I can just crop out the regions close to each of the two flowers and apply the same classifier on them. And it works great. Here is the code and the results. Python Code to detect whether an image contains any hummingbirds. It also includes an evaluation snippet. Classification output. x-axis is the index of the image, y-axis is the likelihood that we think the image contains a hummingbird. A green dot means the image contains a hummingbird and a red dot means otherwise. From the plot, we see that a threshold of 0.05 gives us only 2 mis-classified examples. We only have two misclassification among 47 examples (i.e. accuracy > 95%). For the two misclassified examples, one is a blurred image due to high-speed movement of the hummingbird and the other one contains only the beak of the hummingbird. Use FFMPEG to clip videos and combine videos in python To clip video, I use FFMPEG . Here is a script in Python to achieve that. from moviepy.video.io.ffmpeg_tools import ffmpeg_extract_subclip t1 = 22*60 + 40 # Start timestamp in secondst2 = 23*60 + 40 # End timestamp in secondsffmpeg_extract_subclip("video1.MOV", t1, t2, targetname="video1.mp4") To concatenate the videos, FFMPEG works great too. Here is a Python script that does the concatenation. import osos.environ["FFMPEG_BINARY"] = "/usr/local/bin/ffmpeg"from moviepy.editor import * clips = [] for filename in [ 'video1.mp4','video2.mp4', 'video3.mp4' ]:clips.append(VideoFileClip(filename)) video = concatenate_videoclips(clips, method='compose')video.write_videofile('combined2.mp4')

What do you get when you mix sugar water, 3D printing and deep learning?

A Discussion with Albert Wenger

Coding and artificial intelligence are not enough. Facebook, Twitter, Google on combating violent extremism online. Earlier this month, Facebook published a detailing its approach to counter terrorism. white paper “In the wake of recent terror attacks, people have questioned the role of tech companies in fighting terrorism online,” Monika Bickert, Facebook director of global policy management, and Brian Fishman, counterterrorism policy manager. write Our stance is simple: There’s no place on Facebook for terrorism. Facebook explains how it removes terrorists and posts that support terrorism “whenever we become aware of them.” That means when those posts are reported and subsequently reviewed. “And in the rare cases when we uncover evidence of imminent harm, we promptly inform authorities,” the paper points out. Facebook and other digital platforms realize that, although radicalization primarily occurs offline, the Internet does play a role . “We believe technology, and Facebook, can be part of the solution,” Bickert and Fishman write. Facebook relies on three main pillars: Artificial intelligence, including image matching; language understanding; removing terrorist clusters; recidivism; and cross-platform collaboration. This last item is quite important considering that Facebook is only one of the platforms of the company’s family of apps. Human expertise which includes reviewing flagged posts; counting on the advise of terrorism and safety specialists; and understanding and analyzing what constitutes a credible threat that merits escalation to law enforcement. Partnering with others, including in the tech industry, government, and civil society. Facebook also collaborates with law enforcement agencies to the extent that they can (considering for instance how encryption works) and with organizations working on countering terrorists’ narratives online “We want Facebook to be a hostile place for terrorists,” the white paper concludes. “The challenge for online communities is the same as it is for real world communities — to get better at spotting the early signals before it’s too late.” The role of Facebook, by far the largest social media platform in the world with almost 2 billion monthly active users, and of all Silicon Valley companies is key in the success of the campaign against ISIS and terrorism. At Google and Youtube, senior vice president and general counsel Kent Walker has recently wrote an where he highlights the steps the company is taking to fight terrorism online. op-ed published by the Financial Times _Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge…_blog.google Four steps we're taking today to fight terrorism online “Terrorism is an attack on open societies, and addressing the threat posed by violence and hate is a critical challenge for us all,” said Walker. Google and YouTube are committed to being part of the solution. There should be no place for terrorist content on our services. “We are working with government, law enforcement and civil society groups to tackle the problem of violent extremism online,” he added. But Walker also stresses what he calls “the uncomfortable truth” — the fact that identifying and removing content that violates platforms’ policies is not enough and that the industry “must acknowledge that more needs to be done.” Google and Youtube pledged to: increase the use of technology to help identify extremist and terrorism-related videos; increase the number of independent experts in Youtube’s program. Trusted Flagger take a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate the platform policies; expand Youtube’s role in counter-radicalisation efforts. Collectively, these changes will make a difference. “And we’ll keep working on the problem until we get the balance right, he said while explaining the company’s commitment to working with industry colleagues like Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter. “Extremists and terrorists seek to attack and erode not just our security, but also our values; the very things that make our societies open and free. We must not let them. Together, we can build lasting solutions that address the threats to our security and our freedoms. It is a sweeping and complex challenge.” Just like Facebook, Google, and Youtube, team is working diligently on removing terrorist-related content. And similarly to Facebook, they rely a lot on technology to identify harmful users and posts. Twitter Public Policy _Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube intensify their fight against terrorism._hackernoon.com Tech giants launch the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism In its tenth and on the 13th anniversary since the first-ever tweet, the company said that it suspended a total of 636,248 terror-related accounts in the period of August 1, 2015 through December 31, 2016. transparency report During the reporting period included in the latest transparency report — July 1, 2016 through December 31, 2016 — a total of 376,890 accounts were suspended for violations related to promotion of terrorism. Most of the accounts suspended, about 74 percent, consisted of accounts surfaced by Twitter’s own internal, proprietary spam-fighting tools. The report includes a new section with Government terms of service (TOS) reports. “This new section is limited to data about government reports to remove content in violation of Twitter’s terms of service (TOS) against the promotion of terrorism,” the company said while stating that government TOS reports represent less than 2% of all suspensions. “It also includes an update on the company’s to remove terrorist content from our platform beyond government reports.” continued work , Twitter strongly condemned the use of the platform by terror-related organization and stressed its commitment “to eliminating the promotion of violence or terrorism on our platform.” Back in August last year Our efforts continue to drive meaningful results, including a significant shift in this type of activity off of Twitter. And as Twitter pointed out in a , “there is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgement calls based on very limited information and guidance.” 2016 blog post Recently, , formerly with the National Security Council at the White House in the Obama administration, as Twitter’s new global policy communications director. the company hired Emily Horne According to Recode, “Horne will oversee Twitter’s messaging and communications for all things related to Twitter policy, including issues of abuse, hate speech and user privacy. As part of the NSC, Horne handled messaging around anti-ISIL counterterrorism initiatives, and regularly briefed top government security officials.” Recode points out how Horne will play a key role is an important. “Comms deals with with foreign governments and also walks a fine line between allowing free speech and allowing hate speech.” censorship issues In last year, Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook, and Youtube announced a shared-industry database to help identify terrorist-related content spreading across their platforms and to speed up takedowns and suspensions. December “But it’s fair to say that the issue of terrorist takedowns is just the tip of the political iceberg that has crashed into social media giants in recent times,” . TechCrunch reports Trolls, fake news, and hate speech have become huge problems for many online platforms, and in particular for Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the U.S. election last year with many criticizing the two social media companies of skewing political discourse by incentivizing the sharing of misinformation and enabling the propagation of far right extremist views. Fake accounts, propaganda, and the fake news phenomenon are only one of the many facets of the fight against ISIS and terrorism online. “We have to take measures to keep these tools from being misused,” , head of research and development at , at WIRED’s 2017 Business Conference in New York. “We look at censorship, cybersecurity, cyberattacks, ISIS — everything the creators of the Internet did not imagine the Internet would be used for.” explained Yasmin Green Jigsaw Jigsaw, a think tank within Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., is intensely focused on combatting online pro-terror propaganda. In 2016, Green travelled to Iraq to speak directly to ex-ISIS recruits. “The conversations led to a tool called the , which uses machine learning detect extremist sympathies based on search patterns,” WIRED writes. “Once detected, the serves these users videos that show the ugly side of ISIS — a counter-narrative to the allure of the ideology. At the point that they are buying a ticket to join the caliphate, she said, it was too late.” Redirect Method Redirect Method “It’s mostly good people making bad decisions who join violent extremist groups,” Green stressed. “So the job was: let’s respect that these people are not evil and they are buying into something and lets use the power of targeted advertising to reach them, the people who are sympathetic but not sold.” In addition to the which so far has targeted around 300,000 people with videos served up by it, Jigsaw has also created , a machine-learning algorithm that uses context and sentiment training to target toxic speech in comment sections on news organizations’ sites, whose beta version is being used by the likes of The New York Times. Redirect Method, Perspective But the issue goes beyond counter-messaging and removing harmful posts. , some “argue that social media companies are liable not for allowing terrorists to use their platforms but for from that use.” According to Slate profiting Citing recent lawsuits, Slate explains that because digital ads target specific viewers based on the content of the pages they visit, when it comes to terrorist posts, ads target “those who might be most sympathetic to terrorist messages.” “If the connection between a terrorist’s tweet and an attack intuitively seems too attenuated, what happens when social media on that content?,” the online magazine writes. profits The issue of combating ISIS and violent extremism online has recently been the focus of the G7 at the last summit in Taormina, Italy. “While being one of the most important technological achievements in the last decades, the Internet has also proven to be a powerful tool for terrorist purposes,” reads the G7 joint statement on the fight against terrorism and violent extremism that came out of the first day of the G7 Summit in Taormina, Sicily. The G7 leaders — Justin Trudeau; of France; Angela Merkel of Germany; Paolo Gentiloni of Italy; Shinzo Abe of Japan; Theresa May of the United Kingdom; Donald Trump of the United States; and Jean-Claude Juncker of the and Donal Tusk of the Council of the European Union — called upon the technology groups and social media platforms “to substantially increase their efforts to address terrorist content.” CanadianPM Emmanuel Macron European Commission We encourage industry to act urgently in developing and sharing new technology and tools to improve the automatic detection of content promoting incitement to violence, and we commit to supporting industry efforts in this vein including the proposed industry-led forum for combatting online extremism. _At the G7 Summit in Italy, the G7 leaders condemned “in the strongest possible terms terrorism in all its forms and…_medium.com G7 statement on the fight against terrorism and violent extremism The G7 leaders highlighted the need “to support the promotion of alternative and positive narratives rooted in our common values and with due respect to the principle of freedom of expression.” Countering propaganda is key, they said, to fight terrorism and violent extremism, online recruitment by extremists, and radicalization and incitement to violence. The leaders agreed to increase their engagement with civil society, youth and religious leaders, detention facilities, and educational institutions. They also decided to task Interior Ministers of the G7 countries “to meet, as soon as possible, to focus on implementation of the following commitments and to work collectively with the private sector and civil society to defeat terrorism.” In March, representatives from 68 countries gathered in Washington DC for the hosted by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the . Countering extremism and terrorism online was high on the agenda. Meeting of Ministers of the Global Coalition on the Defeat of ISIS U.S. Department of State Secretary Tillerson highlighted the role of social media in countering terrorist messages and in the fight against ISIS. He stressed how the cooperation with Silicon Valley has contributed to a 75% reduction of ISIS content online in one year. In his introductory remarks at the Coalition meeting, “We all should deepen our cooperation with the tech industry to prevent encrypted technologies for serving as tools that enable extremist collaboration,” Tillerson said. He added: “We need the global tech industry to develop new advancements in the fight and we thank those companies which are already responding to this challenge. We must capitalize on the strong advancements in data analytics and algorithmic technologies to build tools that discover ISIS’ propaganda and identify imminent attacks.”

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