How to Curtail ISIS Influence through Social Media?

How to Curtail ISIS Influence through Social Media?

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It seems that the eight-month US strategy to curtail the Islamic State terror group’s success in cyberspace was not effective. U.S. officials admit it is hard to know if they are making much headway.

According to VOA News, the new approach laid out in January shifted some of the focus away from government-led efforts to counter IS and placed greater emphasis on working with communities and local organizations. However, there was no progress in efforts to counter online activities by Islamic State, which still has the ability to recruit and radicalize.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security hope to gain new funding to allow them to hone their efforts. DHS has requested an additional $20 million for fiscal 2017, split between a $10 million grant program and funding for community partnerships and for research, training and analysis.

Jessica Stern, a fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health evaluates that risk factors for radicalization among Western youth often have more to do with feelings of alienation, from country and community.

Removing extremist content from social networks is a challenge, but even if Facebook, Google and Twitter removed this content – “immediately you have literally thousands of websites, gaming platforms, messaging services” that can distribute similar material, says Monika Bickert, a Facebook executive. Racing to “scrub” that type of material from public view on social media can backfire in the long run. “When you do take down that content at the very initial stage, when somebody’s interacting with it, then you do lose that ability to see the rest of that escalation,” Bickert noted.