Combatting Online Harms Through Innovation
German government is funding a project to create an AI-based app for detecting dark patterns. 87 Also worth noting is a project at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, in which researchers are collecting and analyzing data on dark patterns and will then try to classify new ones in the wild. 88
D. Illegal content online, including the illegal sale of opioids, child sexual exploitation and abuse, revenge pornography, harassment, cyberstalking, hate crimes, the glorification of violence or gore, and incitement of violence Illegal sales of opioids and other drugs Multiple federal agencies have been looking into developing AI tools as a way to detect illegal opioid sales or disrupt opioid traffickers. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, has invested in the creation of an AI-based tool to detect illegal opioid sellers. 89 The National Institute of Justice, which is part of the Department of Justice, has invested in AI technology to expose opioid trafficking on the dark web. 90 Further, the Food and Drug Administration has indicated that it uses AI-enabled tools in the context of its criminal investigations. 91 Social media companies are reportedly using AI and other means to root out opioid and other illegal drug sales, 92 though such drugs can still easily be found for sale on those sites. 93 This
OECD, Roundtable on Dark Commercial Patterns Online: Summary of discussion at 6 (2021) (suggesting collaboration between consumer protection authorities and academics to develop automated detection tools), https://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=DSTI/CP(2020)23/FINAL&docLanguag e=En. 87 See https://dapde.de/en/project/teilbereich-informatik-en/. 88 See Katherine Miller, Can’t Unsubscribe? Blame Dark Patterns, Stanford HAI News (Dec. 13, 2021), https://hai.stanford.edu/news/cant-unsubscribe-blame-dark-patterns. 89 See https://www.usaspending.gov/award/CONT AWD 75N95019C00069 7529 -NONE- -NONE-. 90 See https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/awards/2018-75-cx-0032. 91 See Rebecca Heilweil, AI can help find illegal opioid sellers online. And wildlife traffickers. And counterfeits, Vox recode (Jan. 21, 2020), https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/21/21060680/opioids-artificial-intelligence-illegalonline-pharmacies. 92 See, e.g., https://snap.com/en-US/safety-and-impact/post/expanding-our-work-to-combat-the-fentanyl-epidemic (reporting that Snap also directs people searching for drug content to an educational portal and that it is constantly updating its databases to account for new drug terms that illicit drug sellers employ); https://transparency fb.com/data/community-standards-enforcement/regulated-goods/facebook/. 93 See, e.g., Jan Hoffman, Fentanyl Tainted Pills Bought on Social Media Cause Youth Drug Deaths to Soar, The New York Times (May 19, 2022), https://www nytimes.com/2022/05/19/health/pills-fentanyl-social-media.html; Tech Transparency Project, Spot Check: Instagram’s Drug Pipeline for Teens (May 17, 2022), https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/spot-check-instagrams-drug-pipeline-teens; Olivia Solon and Zoe Schiffer, Instagram pushes drug content to teens, NBC News (Dec. 7, 2021), https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-
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