Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On ISIS And Social Media 20160508

On extremism at George Washington University Center and cyber homeland security. Fellow at the internet law and policy foundry and was it fellow at the congressional internet caucus in the past. Lets get started. I will give a brief overview of the issue and then we will jump right into it and get into the real issue here with extremist online, what role do platforms like twitter, facebook and google play in this and what is the right way to be approaching the issue of dealing with extremist content online and recruitment for terrorist groups abroad. Seen going onhave but we have social media platforms like twitter and facebook have generally in their early years been quite in favor of leaving their platforms as places for free especially in the past few years, weve seen that being taken advantage of by groups like al qaeda and then we have the Islamic State beginning to use the platform even more actively than, that really bringing to it a totally difficult level and now the platforms are facing pressure from several sides. From government to the users to do something more to take the content out of peoples social its not something you want to see every day and its not something that we do want spreading around because it is generally effective in getting people to go abroad and join those causes. Can you tell us when did this start in how are the platforms being used . What are the groups doing . It started when the internet started, right . In the early days when we looked at kurdish groups online it was on pass protected forums and then as the internet shifted over to more open platforms like twitter and facebook, so did recruitment. If you look at the number of individuals arrested for is sis related charges, the arch age is 26. Theyre going online for their demographic that. Tends to be twitter. Weve seen a shift over to other platforms but they clearly use the online environment in a way that is conducive for them to recruit. Think of it in three ways. They use it as grooming. Over the summer at George Washington we did a sixmonth study of isis recruits on line. Of those, you see them grooming online so we watched a young woman from the midwest who had questions about her faith and an isis recruiter realized she was naive and he was answering questions in a very inknock cost wouse way and a few weeks later isis d slowly introduce beliefs. Up a teenager gets picked at ohair airport, when hi arrested him they went through his stuff and realized he had four numbers have he had received those numbers of feel to call in turkey through contacts he had met through twitter. And the last way they do it is what the f. B. I. Director says, the devil on the shoulder. Egging people on to do this. Putting that in on the text, you have to realize the naurms pale in comparison to any conversation on line. The english language is anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 accounts online. But theyre clearly using the online environment. Its not like if twitter went away tomorrow, we wouldnt have recruits joining. So the fact that theres a physical space, a socalled caliphate, that is a driver where people are going. Twitter and things like that will just help facilitate that recruitment. The reason why its not the reason why people become radicalized and join groups like his. Communities dont radicalize in america. Individuals do. Here if youre trying to find a likeminded individual, you usually try and find it on line. Can you tell us how youre approaching this phenomenon and how youre working to combat it . Its a threat we take very seriously. Our First Priority in the Justice Department is to protect the American People from attacks and what were seeing isil do online is use very sophisticated techniques. He talked about some of the approaches theyve used. Theyve also done Something Different from previous groups, in that they have adopted cowardsourcing models in which they encourage anyone anywhere to commit attacks on innocent people. The government challenge is you have to be successful 100 of the time. Isil is recruiting millions of people around the world. They reach out to an audience of 1. 6 billion muslims and others. Even if theyre successful in a minuscule number of those cases, you still have a problem of 20,000, 30,000 foreign fighters. The problem of isis getting followers all around the world. Their adept at targeting different people in different languages. Theyve tried to reach occupant to youth and offer a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging. They use a combination of strength and warmth that they try to lure recruits with, a sense of camaraderie and as twisted as it sounds, they climb to be building something. Weve all seen the atrocities that theyve broadcasted around the world but theyve also put out positive messaging. The themes of camaraderie, strength, and warmth and they claim to be building something and theyre calling people to build something, which is in their conception, the caliphate. So one of the realizations that we have at governments as that there are multiple audiences and we have to be smart about using the right messengers to reach the right audiences so government isnt always going to be the right messenger to reach the various audiences were trying to reach. You have a class of that are potentially thinking about joining isil in the short term and then you have the immediate influencers around, the family, friends, pierce, then you have cultural influences, the public generally and then you have a mass audience, or general public. Government may be more effective in the presentive stage in reaching out to people that havent already bought into aspects of the propaganda or the ideology but you need specific audiences to reach, for example the specific class who are they going to listen . Perhaps theyll only listen to other extremists and maybe those are not violent extremists but people that are extreme in their views that can persuade them to come back. Thats not a role for the government to play. Who is the best audience to reach out to cultural influencers . What weve tried to do in government, where possible, weve tried to message ourselves to audiences which we think we can reach. Some of the themes are to highlight isils atrots tis against particularly muslim communities, who theyre also killing in big numbers. Highlighting isils battlefield losses. Sheamus noted they have territories they can point to, come and help us establish we point to the losses theyre take particularly in iraq and syria and weve also tried to ex pose the Living Conditions and defectors have done that. We think its important to work with partners to disseminate positive messages that make clear what the rest of the Muslim Community stands for and to highlight positive alternatives but if someone says i really have a problem with whats happening in syria turned bashar regime and i want to do something about it, we have to find other paths for people that are constructive constructive rather than destructive. It sound like the dual use of the sbeernter internet. And we also see that the platforms are torn between taking down violent content and threatening con zpent on one hand leaving it off for intelligence purposes and on the other hand trying to minimize what theyre taking down so that they dont have to be the ones judging what is appropriate content and what is not. Can you tell us about the response weve seen from the companies and some of the concerns they might be considering when theyre asked to comment on how to approach this issue . Yes. So obviously over the past year and a half, can you hear me now . Great. Clearly over the past year and a half, weve seen a huge amount of scrutiny on major Internet Companies. The big social media platforms about how are they responding to the existence of socalled extremist content on line and it might help a little bit, the little framework around speech online. What sit that enables the change of information, expression of opinions that beall enjoy. In the u. S. We have the strong protections of the First Amendments for speech. Where we have high standards for what is speech that the government can say is unlawful . Kind of relevant issues in that context are is a comment a, direct incitement to imminent law, action or imminent violence . Is it a true threat of violence or intended violence against another individual . But we dont generally have broad prohicks against hate speech and theres certainly no definition of extremist content as unlawful speech. Already were sort of in an environment of what exactly are we talking about. What sort of speech in content, what were talking about is unclear. That weve what weve seen a as ways e companies do to remove content that gets reported to them. So Internet Companies, hooks of our speech online are generally protected for any legal liberty for speech that they are not themselves the author of. This is section 230 of the Communications Act that ensures that if i, for example, tweet something defamatory about sheamus, sheamus can sue me, of course, but he cant sue twitter about it. This law has been incredibly important to the amazing innovation weve seen with the internet and with Online Platforms and also just to supporting speech online. All of us depend on a number of different intermediaries being willing to host and transmit our speech. If youre an your i. S. P. Or l Media Provider could for your speech, it would be very unlikely to let you speak. Also, in that law, companies are protected for their decisions to remove speech. This is where we see Companies Developing terms of service, where they spell out the things of what kinds of speech theyll allow on their platforms and also violations of their rules or standards. A lot of them have rules about hate speech, even though this is often speech thats totally protected under the law in the u. S. , they may still say they dont want to host speech that is denigrating to a particular group or class. Most of them have standards against direct threats or threats of violence. Every safe book has a standard against dangerous organizations in particular by which they tend to mean tryst organizations or terrorist organizations or organized crime. Weve seen a range of different kinds of terms grow up over the platforms over the years and companies then in response with user flags used to violate their terms will look at content and see does this seem to go too far . Does this stem over the line of what theyve already described to be acceptable or not acceptable on their platform. So let me hear from the rest of the panel about this plans of sort of opportunity of the opportunity, of the platform, to spread varies different types of speech various different times of speech, positive speech, to keep track of whats going on and the desire to control the dangerous speech, the hate speech. What are you in the research arena, how do you see that playing out . Sure. We have a fellow on the program of extremism, j. M. Burger, who looked at english language accounts over a months period to figure out if takedown was effective or not. The takedown accounts were effective in terms of reducing the number of followers that the person had when they came back, particularly on twitter. Theres the first part. Heres the second part we should also keep in mind. Theres a bitin system for resiliency into the system. An individual like terrence oneal, who was arrested for terrorist related charges last fall. When we started watching he was seven and by the time we arrested him he was 27. He was kicked off 24 times. There was an isis chamber that had a shadow account. Heres lone wolf eight, used to be lone wolf seven, everyone follow him. Theres a system that says we know were going to get kicked off in terms of violation of service but were going to help other people get on. From a research perspective, you want as much as as much data adds you can. Its a balancing act on whether takedown is the necessary way. I tend to be more on the positive encounter and alternative messaging than imon takedown although there are some instances where inch takedown is warranted. Weve been encouraged by companies enforcing their terms of service. And there are echo chambers out there in the violent extremism world where theyre posting violent tweets and beheading videos and not a lot of intelligence value necessarily in that cano chamber. There may be some limited cases in which it can be helpful and there is some intelligence and that can always be communicated to companies but for the most part, i agree with sheamuss view on it. Now, its important again to remember that overwhelming isil is rejected around the world and theres a reason for that. Its largely because of their own actions and a lot of the atrocities theyre committing. The stories that have been told by isil and other groups, the stories of defectors, all those are getting out through social media as well. So i know we have perhaps 1,000 of a per sent of people targeted by isil have gone and joined and thats unacceptably highway for all of us but its important to remember that these platforms also provide an opportunity to put out not just counter messaging but positive messaging that allows the rest of us, including muslim communities to communicate what we stand for. Thats the risk of the overbroad content policy or particularly increasing pressure on companies to strengthen their policies, make them so that more content can come down is that it is this potentially vastly overbroad response to what end up being, as sheamuss research seems to indicate its a lot of Oneonone Communications that end up driving the actual individual to commit an act of violence and if youre trying to capture oneonone highly tailored direct conversation with a policy thats about taking down all of the speech thats sort of in the general area of discussing isis and u. S. Foreign policy, youre throwing out a whole lot of baby with very little bath water. Thats a good segue because we have had some pressure from e u. S. Got to add additional liabilities for the platform or at least to compel them to turn over certain information if they come across it or for Government Agencies that use certain information in their response and weve had more collaborative communication between the sum mitts overseas and here in california. What are the right ways to approach it if the overbroad approach is that . So there have been some proposals in congress that would try to require Internet Companies to report apparent terrorist at this time to the government if they identify it. And this kind of proposal is pretty concerning. Theres not in the particular bills that have been proposed, theres no real definition of what terrorist activity might be and what that sort of model when set up is basically a huge incentive for all of our Communications Providers to err on the side of caution in reporting their users to the government as a suspected tryst or as activity, or as suspected to be involved in a terrorist activity. A huge amount of that would be overreporting, which is incredibly concerning if to civil liberties, our right to private communes and also not generating useful information for law enforcement. I think its very much what rochelle had been saying about the need to support the environment where the defectors or journal u. S. S or the advocates who are out there countering the message that isis presents and providing their own kind of positive viewpoints and positive idea, we need to ensure that there are strong protections for free speech in plates so that that can happen. We unfortunately see theres reports about the way is that antiterrorism laws in egypt and turkey, country that is are allies in the fight against isis are also using those antiterrorist laws to put journal is in jail and that kind of overbroad approach that ends up constraining the speech of exactly those people we need to get different viewpoints and different messages out there is a real risk. Theres also kind of an entering dynamic here. You can think about the governments amazing ant to convene. Call so social media provide sexers get them in a room, it would be difficult. For them, theres the ability to do that. I think back to my days in government. I was in sacramento and talking o an imam who wanted to do counterterrorism videos on line. He said i want to grab a roared and film myself talking about how isis is wrong for these reasons. I said thats fine but no one is going to watch this heres a guy who wants to message but he has no idea of how to tag the videos. The government has the ability to play as a convener, the matchmaker in this situation that says we dont want to be anywhere near in thing but heres somebody we know here you may want to talk about. Thats how weve tried to use our convening role by bringing about the types of Community Leaders you mentioned. People that are adept at using social media in the platform. Advertiser sector, Silicon Valley companies and after that our job is to sustain communication to some extent but realizing that government is not the best messenger in space. Our job is to also step back and allow the creative people that know how to put out the best positive and counter managing to do their thing. There is evidence to indicate that were making steady progress in this area. Not only have the social Media Companies, weve had relationships and discussions with. Not only have we seen twitter rginia has taken own 125,000 isilaffiliated accounts but weve seen polling where larger and larger percentages of young arab nations are ruling out association with isis. Population f arab in the countries surveilled said they would never consider joining it. If you were to do a poll of the disapproval rating of isil in many of these countries, its even higher. A lot of attention is paid towards the small percentage, and deservedly so that has bought into that ideology but theres a lot of good work thats being done, largely outside of government, to make sure that those that might be susceptible to is ill dont fall prey to their isil, dont fall prey to their message. Thats a very good point. From an actual messaging perspective, you can tailor your messaging to those 900 to 1,000 people. You can do oneonone interventions online. Youre never going to be able to deradicalize or disengage someone online but you might be able to introduce a seed of doubt about the killing of civilians and then you can have an offline conversation about that person should come back in the fold. If the numbers which you stated are possibly correct in terms of the number of people in the United States, for example, that might be susceptible to you sills ideology. You dont want to have a messaging campaign that sends the message that somehow all muslim youth are vulnerable or because some of them might face discrimination they might be ssue acceptable to radicalism. Thats data that indicates per captaina at the same level or Higher Education level per captaina higher income levels than than people of other faiths and so you dont want to have kind of a one size fits all mass messaging approach to reach the audience that weve talked about. And if you look at sheamuss report in terms of isil hello related arrest, theres a statistic that 40 of those arrested are recent converts. Sometimes theres the narrative out there that because theres youth that have grown up alienated that somehow isils youth are somehow susceptible to recruitment. The large percentage of those in the Muslim Community didnt grow up as muslims. Muslim americans sitting at their dinner table every night are talking about the same issues at as all americans. In fact, theyre overwhelming rejecting the message that isil is putting out there and thats borne out by all the data that we see. So messaging itself is i feel like what do we say but it feels like targeting is equally as important is. There a role for internet floomples help in advising how to go about that targeting or to prioritize certain content allege rhythmically . Are we seeing anything in that direction . Or some of the things we have seen from the media platforms have been much less about actually affecting the main kind the facebook newsfeed, twitter become a search results. They have been clear about not wanting to change or manipulate those displays of information because they are core products. Because of pressure from governance. That is the right call, i think. The kind of overbearing government affect on the access of information. It would undermine a lot of the very good counter narrative that we see coming out. What we have seen some companies to, programs they have had with nonprofits around a number of different topics that focus on the question of radicalization and extremism right now. Space in the advertising that might appear on facebook pages or search engines. Kind of sponsoring different nonprofits so that they can have their message show up as an ad alongside related content. There is still some questions there about is this Company Getting too far into promoting certain ideas over others. We had this funny relationship with social media platforms where in a lot of ways, we like it when content that we care about is displayed to us and we dont want to see 19 million baby photos. That is not what we are into. It also seems like when companies are taking a nonneutral, or very ideologically motivated decision position, back and make people feel uncomfortable. A key part around all this is transparency. People are particularly uncomfortable when it is not clear where the motivation is coming from or how viewpoints are being shaped. The more that we can hear from the companies about what they are doing, the more we can see open public discussions about what government might be considering or companies considering as opposed to close our meetings where we only get closeddoor meetings were really at weeks of agendas or anonymous reports. The more transparent we can be about how are things being worked out and what influences are there, the more comfortable a lot of people will be. Talkere was a lot of before the platforms seem to be doing less to combat this that they were actually helping what did i would to talk about it for two reasons. One, you do now to show your cards to the people who are trying to game the system and put that content of and two, cooperating with the government was not necessarily desirable for the users. My sense is that we have seen a shift and users are wanting to see more of that. Is that something you have seen and you think trend of keeping the distance will start to evolve away from that and be more public cooperation when you see that continuing . Or do you see that continuing . I come back to the point about transparency. One take away from the snowden revelations, you do not want to surprise people with the scope of what is going on. That creates a strong backlash. It is our right as citizens to know how our government is affecting our environment for speech and how our government is influencing what access to information in public we have. Conversations more publicly is important, which is not to say that necessarily we want really close correlation with government and companies. Very much to the point that youve talked about the recognition of went government needs to step back. The worst thing would be to undermine the efforts of the people providing alternative viewpoints because those people are cast as being too close to the u. S. Government and discounted. I understand the sensitivity you mentioned. At the same time, it is true that the social Media Companies very clear about the fact that they do not want to have their platform been used by terrorists to spread their message. There is a lot of basis for cooperation and we are seeing progress in the area. I think the trend is headed in the right direction as you mentioned. Given thehat sensitivities and the overbroad approach that we think may not be the right way, what would be helpful from companies from the American People to helping to combat this content in the right way and a smart way . Low hangingsome fruit on the street when we did report on isis in america, we communitya number of members and religious leaders, i engage get on there and in talk to a kid who i worried about. Im worried that if i do, i will get caught at airports for engaging with known terrorists. There is some level that the department of justice and other organizations could provide at least some policy or legal guy its guidance. Those charges a very broad. I understand when i engage with these individuals, that i will hit against stuff. I reckon i transmitted, but to ask somebody from Middle America who wants to message me to understand the nuances without a rightleft t. Doubt be something the government could provide that is something the government could provide. One Contribution Company can is moreall this improvement in appeals policies. Onknow as they are focusing trying to enforce their terms consistently, mistakes happen. The scale of content that gets posted and reviewed by companies every day is anonymous. Casesare going to be where 1016 seconds of human reviewed that an account should be taken down errors on the wrong side. You might be losing important countering voices in that process. Ensuring that there are ways and the way that we look at content policies on platforms to make sure they are looked at not just within i with an eye of keeping the most extreme content off the platform, but making sure it is a space for discussion and debate about the content and these issues more generally. We can look into providing Additional Guidance for those that are doing the work of counter messaging. They should be in a position of what theyre are doing counter messaging, they have to be concerned about being accused of providing material support. Those examplesof on a casebycase basis and it is clear in cases where someone is out there trying to do the good work of countering the message rather than supporting isis. Tight schedule today, i want to open it up to questions about the from the audience so that the panel can adjust address them. Does anyone have any questions . No . One question i had, there have been several lawsuits against the platform for hosting this content which they are immune to under the law. Can you explain if those cases will go anywhere or if theyre just people jumping on the topic of the day . Generally, the law is clear that there is no there are strong protections against holding platforms civilly liable for speech that the users post. They think there have been a few cases where people are speaking damages seeking damages for the death of a loved one that they tried to tie back to content that have been posted on social media. Always a, it is heartbreaking story and you can understand why a person will be trying to find some restitution. We need to be very careful about assign the we proximate cause of the death of. Omebody a terrorist act try to sleep on platforms under sweep platforms under a broad liability is not going to succeed. The department of justice has played with the idea of going after idea of sharing content. Is that something youre continuing to pursue or are you approaching the people who may not be directly supporting the content . Area ispproach in this government by the First Amendment. There is a lot a speech that is protected speech that we may not agree with, but we are not prosecuting those cases. The cases which can be prosecuted the wants in which there have been specific threats or solicitations of crimes against particular individuals. You referenced one of the cases from ohio. Those of the types of cases we talk about. We have to wrap up in just a few minutes. Given that this is such a live issue an important issue affecting lives, it is distressing to the public and the platforms that are joined ish this, what do you think the most important thing for congress to take away from this issue moving forward as they are thinking about how to legislate or hold off on legislating or asking the companies for help . On the flipside, any other parties involved, what is the most important thing we should be doing to continue the trend of individuals rejecting the message that isis is spreading . It is clear that we are not going to kill our way out of this problem. We are not going to delete our way out of this problem. We need to continue reaching the right audiences through the right messengers. That requires not just the government but a whole range of actors. We have put into place at the government level, and working with other mechanisms by which we can get out the right counter messaging in the right positive messaging and then the right positive alternatives for young people. And disaffected people, for perhaps in aon, trusted adult people that they be as an injustice, they say they cannot sit still. We have to Work Together to find those mechanisms for the small segment of the population that may be attracted to the vessel isis message. And it is worth keeping in mind that the message is overwhelmingly rejected. We also reach out in the name of reaching target communities with overbroad tactics or messages that could paint entire groups as vulnerable or as a problem when we have a distinct audience that we trying to reach through. In the preventive space, general audiences that we try to reach. Congress and everyone to remember, the u. S. Will be watched very closely for our responses to all of this. The standard that we set and the model that we set can do either a lot of good, or a lot of harm. If we can keep it on the side of good, show that there are ways to pursue the fight against isis that do not involve rod based censorship broadbased censorship. The we are conscious of an active to avoid the stigmatizing effect of muslim communities and instead focus on showing how truly supporting our fundamental actually help us succeed in the fight. I think that is, ultimately, the message of what it means to come at the fight from eight position of democratic ideals and it will be much more convincing than an approach motivated by fear to crack down on speech and put many more people under scrutiny by the government. I will be contrary for the sake of conversation. Ability to have a large megaphone. You see what congress uses the megaphone. You see action. I do not believe there would be a summit of the white house if it was not for congress hammering social Media Companies to do with the issue. There is a reason why youtube has a flagging for terrorist content because, for two years they got beat up on the hill of videos of u. S. Soldiers being killed by a bike bag baghdad sniper. Role in can play a. Orcing the convening the default of social Media Companies is very libertarian, understand we so. There is a balancing act between the family members and the Free Expression of online conversation. Im encountering to be contrary to beng contrary contrary. The importance of counter messaging and solving positive content. Are there any empirical ways of measuring the success of that . I say trans lighting that to off on behavior and being able to correlate that as being proving to be the radicalizing. If there were to measure that . Is there a way to measure that . It is nearly impossible. It is easier. Thinks a think type tank where they did direct oneonone interventions to see how the engagement would work. That is a small table size of 14 people. To dovery laborintensive that. In terms of broadbased messaging, very difficult. How do you measure dont do drugs . It is a difficult dynamic. It is difficult to prove a negative. Messaging, who would go into violent extremism and who wouldnt . There is data that is out there and we see the types of messages that tend to resonate and get traction. Stories of family members. There is data indicating that some of the best intervenors are family members, and particularly mothers. There is polling data, i mentioned a poll indicating that 80 of arab youth between the ages of 1824 would never consider joining isis. Just one year prior, the number was 60 . See trends. You do there are messages out there that tend to be picking up traction. At the end of the day, finding the right metrics has its challenges. That does not mean there are not metrics that would can use. We should continue to develop as we engage in what were doing. It is important to make sure that you have empirical research. Particularly in the area of intervention. Yet a cents overtime of what types of tools and strategies work and what types dont. Some of that, we have seen from the work in europe. Studies. Draw on the germanych as exit in that are operating in the space. We have examples of programs that have worked in programs that have not worked. We try to take the best and go forward. I know you have to run. We will keep the questions going for the other panelists. Given in the United States, there was a statement that toddlers have killed more americans than isis recruits. We do not want to create the illusion that muslim used are at risk youth are at risk. But when the focus is on pilot extremism or isis violent extremism or isis, doesnt that create that if you are just looking at on slice of violence in the that states when overwhelmingly violence committed in the United States is not from isis. Out . Eparate it it seems like the indicators toward violence are sort of the same things. Alienation, frustration, the hold general thing that drives people to do violence. That is a fantastic point. I think it has been one of the critiques of the country violent extremism on some of the governments work because there is his back and forth between, are we talking about all violent extremism or all the sort of threats domestically to violence against civilians, or are we talking about antiradicalization for people who might be recruits. It is very clear that people shifting of target and as i just encouraged the government to be a lot clearer about, what is the focus. As they say, there are actually much more significant threats inside the United States the safety of the slowing population from people who have nothing to do with isis. A focus on that could be important. I do not think it should be an either or proposition. Where the administration released their strategy, they said they would focus on all forms of extremists. In practice, it has been primarily on isis inspired terrorism. How you approach these issues are similar and dynamic. Oflook at all forms extremism. Domestic terrorism, we look at this issue. Next month we will take a look at isis online and white the premises. What do they talk about and how is it different. What are followers like. We can have a nuanced conversation about extremism and how to refocus our research. I hate to do the numbers on who has been killed more. I would rather not do an either or proposition. We talk about jihadist inspired terrorism, the numbers are similar to White Supremacists seven because of san bernardino. They are very small when you look at the general population of violence in the United States. What is about volume. One is about going. With american users, here over the past five years, has isis traffic on up or down . Is there a way to measure that. The of observations if theres not a way . When takedown campaigns or efforts from the government either funding organizations or convening these conversations, to talk about how we do takedowns. When the this government is funding organizations who participate to take them compound content, if the guidance to be offered on how to run these campaigns . A counter messaging, what are your thoughts on government convening these conversations with Tech Companies and putting organizations to do counter messaging. The become a Propaganda Campaign does that become a Propaganda Campaign . I had to do takedown. It is a point that you race, excellent point that you make. In the United Kingdom, they have programs called internet referral units which are one hypofurther than your about funding nonprofits. It is members of the government themselves, metropolitan police in the United Kingdom who has a unit dedicated to going onto social media platforms, identifying content that they think should come down and theory out figuring out which platform term of service it violates. It is this way saying, the platform is making the decision, we are just telling them the content violates the term of service. We think there is a huge concern with that kind of approach. This is a formal government have certainng to content removed from the web. Because companies terms of service can be much more restrictive than the government can actually go after under the law, it is a way for government to succeed in getting content taken down that they would not be able to go after the record. A court. When you expand that out a step and say that government are funding and incentivizing private parties, he still end up back at this question of Government Action so when you have government identifying particular kind of content and speakers and trying to restrict that, in the United States, that would raise major First Amendment issues. One of increase in isis social media. Clear that isis has been a debt that using social media. Anywhere between 4000 videos a year. They had twitter, telegram, various different platform channels. Im on 50 telegram isis channels right now. Fore are different ways entry points to talk to these individuals. Think about it like the democratization of recruitment. There are three girls from denver. And were on a plane bound to go to turkey and across the border. They got picked up and fight for ,nd turned round because it called every number that colorado phone book. How do they figure out how to do all this . They went on to a tumbler page on where to go into to talk to. It lowers the bar for the 17 euro kid from denver to take the next step. The always eager people are going to figure that out. For an ability that they did not have before. It is interactive. I can have a conversation with emma that i would not be able to have five years ago because i know who she is on twitter and we can go back and forth and dm. I can have a conversation with a foreign fighter in falluja and ask them everything i need to know about what to bring in who i should talk to. It is concerning from the perspective. That is where isis has been effective. Allowing for those who would not making and it is easeofuse that is concerning. I would need to look at thetrolley winter over at Georgia State university has looked at topic and online. You will have to look at his reports. What is overreach . It is a great question. I would love to hear how you have framed your research. The concern is, it depends on which government officials you are talking to and are you talking to someone in the United States or the United Kingdom or europe. You can hear everything from somebody waiting a specific attack that is very clearly something that would be unlawful to just general pro isis propaganda. Videos thatnces to are about not about inspiring about howtalking great life is like in the caliphate and economic opportunities. These that are disagreeable views that are disagreeable or wrong or untrue, it is not anything that falls under traditionally unlawful speech. It is much more in the building peoples positive feelings about isis. When you see the conversation sliding back and forth between the we want to stop commission of violence or do we want to convince people they are wrong to think in a certain way . It is the latter where does try to convince people that they have the wrong view and ideas, that should happen the goal of these programs. They do not think that will work. Stopping people from committing specific acts of violence is an appropriate goal. Trying to win people over to a certainaccording to set of values or police is a losing opposition beliefs is a losing proposition. Not put inplatforms and out of rhythm as they do for child pornography . The answer is that it is so objective. Is this extremist content . It is a scale that you have to really look at for each piece of content. When companies are filtering for cap are not become what they are doing is comparing caches of known images and that material to things that are uploaded to their servers. Is one of our users try to upload a file and does that match to something that we arty know about not wanting to have on our platform. That is the kind of image matching that is very different from the subjective assessment daytoday of hundreds of thousands of pieces of content that could run everything from a direct threat to a stupid joke abouthoughtful discussion ideas that isis is putting forward or instructions on how to come to turkey. A huge range of content that get swept up. It defies the easy algorithmic assessment. Have you to find the buckets in your research . Is important, talk about isis in the american spectrum. On one side, you have the guy iseting about how great isis an address his best friend to the airport and goes to jail for material support. On the other side, another guy who is from st. Louis, 20 years in the nine states, and goes to syria and becomes a commander running a battalion of foreign fighters. That is isis in america. Two different force. A person tweeting in his house and a guy running a battalion. We looked at mostly with your material support. In term of extremist content, we look at notes nodes. If someone is tweeting at one follower, i was interested than tom if there tweeting others. If they connected and talking. That is what i become more interested, the connections to it. A little bit more about the who rather than the what. Anymore questions . You considered walking or making fun of them and following their practices . The men seems to be guys who cant get a date except by kidnapping . I think there would be a lot of room to make fun of some of the things they do. You can make fun of the but putting them in context, these two seem to be guys that candidate cant get a date. This is an important question. What kind of counter messaging be affected. Effective . As opposed to countering. Term ofis where the counter messaging falls apart. What were talking about our people share their views and ideas. One thing we have seen from content on social media is that funny content gets shared a lot more than a nice five paragraph essay carefully breaking down points. Theres a role for that too. To me it seems a very interesting message. Isil is absurd. Argue that will all be intuitive for us or isis for chris. Data, mockinge videos on that was less effective when they had videos mocking him than they did when they were talking about atrocities and killing civilians. They had a news article last week that ahead cam of an isis fighter who cannot shoot straight. That got shared thousands of times. Not get any residency and echo chamber we are looking at. Is english language issa supporters. Isis supporters. They tend to care more about the defections peops. They get angry about the people who defect. There has been messaging about the losses of territory. Tos videos have shifted winning battles instead of giving candy to people in rocca. Thing, that has been , when you bring up families and the dangers individuals when an leaves the family behind, there is a level of effectiveness there. Im talking to a number of individuals are true believers on this. When you bring up family members and say, have you talk to your mom lately or what you think about the fact that you left them behind . They tense up in a way that im not used to seeing. Radicalization is a highly complex and not in your process. Humans are complex. Disengagement and the relatives asian the radicalization will not be linear. Had we figure that out. How do we figure that out . It is difficult to figure out the dynamic. Thank you all for coming out. We appreciate you coming out. We have Upcoming Events and the next few months. Dry out on the mailing list. Keep your eyes out on the mailing list. Have a great weekend. [applause] we will have more tomorrow about combating isis and other terrorist threats. Well take a look at recent attacks in europe and certain groups promoting the agenda. From page of the Washington Post is focusing on the gop. The right facing a crisis in the gop. Points out that donald trump ngimming nomination loomi nomination, breaking from the polka party. Being reshaped by the republican party. Being reshaped by donald trump. It focuses on women and their involvement in politics. Influence ing politics has been tinted and green. Bankrolling the political campaigns more than ever. Boosting Womens Wealth and network set up to gather donations and bolster their influence. An Election Year where women could be the decisive force, the translation is occurring at every level of political givens in both parties from grassroots supporters to the altra wealthy donors who fund super pacs. She is joining us on the phone. She is a National Political reporter. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. As a look at the numbers, the deep hole donald trump is facing among female voters, how does he overcome that . He is based in ap poll for sure. He is not doing very well among republican women. The one thing that will happen, he and Hillary Clinton have made this an issue. There is a huge gender issue. Do is tottempted to make the issue out of bill ,linton and what he has done his infidelities. That is how he is attempting to make up the gap. But that works, it will remain to be seen. A lot of speculation on who he will select as a running mate. If he chooses a female elected official, what impact could that have as he tries to build his coalition . That would help him. He could say, i have a woman who is my number two, i wont women in my cabinet. He has said that before. It would definitely send signals that he wants women to be a part of his administration. What role will women play in this election, not only those at the New York Times pointing out them amount of money they have contribute, but those seeking election office. A huge role. It will be interesting to see what women running down ballot will do, if they are talking about donald trump and the comments he has made about women. Andas had, its about women women in the past. As part of the electorate, they will make a huge entrance as well. Kellyclinton is clinton is going after suburban women who could decide Hillary Clinton