On Sept. 28 in New York City, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) co-hosted with the U.S. State Department the first Global Youth Summit Against Violent Extremism, an initiative that grew from February’s White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism. The Global Youth Summit highlighted the fantastic ongoing work of 75 youth activists from 40 countries, all of who are fighting extremism in their communities.
We desperately want these young people to succeed in helping to steer other young men and women away from extremism, but competing with the relentless and slick social media marketing of ISIS and other groups who misuse social media platforms to radicalize, recruit, and incite violence is a continuing challenge.
The reality is that extremists have been more agile, aggressive, and insidious in their use of social media platforms than governments have been in tracking, stopping, and preventing them from hijacking the online world.
The evidence of the power of the Internet to radicalize and encourage violence can be seen in the 30 thousand people, an estimated 250 from the U.S. alone, who have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria. With more than 40 thousand pro-ISIS Twitter accounts sending more than 90 thousand messages a day, and with the dissemination of hundreds of videos glorifying murder, rape, and brutality, creating a safer online environment is clearly the most pressing public safety and national security issue we face today.
About one year ago, we established the #CEPDigitalDisruption campaign, which exposes extremists who use social media to propagandize, recruit, and incite others to violence. CEP has pressured Twitter to remove hundreds of extremist accounts and change its policies regarding the posting of violent content.
Thankfully, some social media companies have demonstrated that they understand and accept their responsibility to make a positive difference. Facebook, for example, has adopted a zero tolerance policy for terror-related content and removes posts related to terrorist organizations. Both Microsoft and Facebook participated in the Global Youth Summit, leading sessions aimed at improving employment prospects for vulnerable youth and how technology can be used to support community-based efforts to counter radicalization.
To further strengthen efforts to prevent extremists from misusing social media, Twitter and others should give government and organizations, like CEP, Trusted Reporting Status so that accounts we report don’t go into a long queue and are not immediately addressed.
Companies need to elaborate on a clear public policy that extremist activities will not be tolerated and move swiftly to identify and remove prohibited content.
Finally, companies must more proactively search for and remove the worst offenders, and adopt technologies that ensure violators cannot keep coming back under monikers that are only slightly different, spewing the same hatred and making the same threats.
There is no right to freely and anonymously threaten, incite, and coordinate terror, and we can and must do more in a cooperative way to prevent social media abuse.
