(New York, NY) – HBO’s VICE News Tonight program detailed the hashing technology that the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) developed with Dartmouth College Computer Science Professor Dr. Hany Farid, which is capable of detecting and removing extremist images, video, and audio content from Internet and social media platforms. Dr. Farid, the world’s foremost authority on hashing technology, was also interviewed about the announced plan by Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Twitter to cooperatively work to remove certain extremist content from their platforms.

The segment includes President Obama’s description of the dangers posed by online extremist images and video content: “These are killers with fantasies of glory, who are very savvy when it comes to social media and are able to infiltrate the minds of disaffected individuals around the world.”

The feature then describes CEP’s hashing technology and efforts to catalogue the types of content that already violate the terms of service of major Internet and social media companies: “The Counter Extremism Project has been building databases of the worst ISIS content. Each is fed into a new software that extracts a unique signature that makes a kind of ‘do not fly list’ that can automatically prevent ISIS videos from reappearing on social media, on search engines, and even via email after they’ve been deleted.”

Dr. Farid said the initiative announced by the technology companies was in response to growing pressure from governments and the public, and was an acknowledgment that social media companies are not doing enough to “limit the megaphone that has been given to extremist groups.”

“It remains to be seen,” he said, “if it is a real step forward or not.”

To watch the full report, please click here.