By Jack Nicas, Sam Schechner and Deepa Seetharaman
Terrorists are still successfully using the internet to
communicate with and recruit followers, despite progress by big
tech companies in cracking down on the activity in recent
years.
Online terrorist propaganda is attracting fresh criticism in the
wake of Saturday's deadly terror attack in London. Prime Minister
Theresa May and others have singled out Silicon Valley for
criticism, saying Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Alphabet Inc.'s
Google and others need to do a better job policing content. It is
unclear if the U.K. government has determined any link between
online extremist content and the attack.
The challenge for tech companies is daunting: A stream of
social-media accounts, web videos and blog pages are constantly
popping up and spewing questionable content, while new accounts and
sites are replacing deleted ones by the hour, researchers say. Much
of the activity, like radical sermons or videos that use coded
language, falls in a gray area that makes it difficult to track or
is possibly protected by the companies' aim to protect free
speech.
As Facebook, Twitter and Google's YouTube have improved in
removing explicit terrorist content, much of that material has
migrated to lesser-known platforms like chat app Telegram and
text-sharing site PasteBin. Terrorists still use the major
platforms -- because that is where users are -- but mainly to
identify potential recruits and make contact, before moving
conversations toward radicalization on encrypted messaging
services, researchers say.
"You get the sense that no matter how much [tech companies]
speed up, the perception remains that they're not doing enough,"
said Indiana University law professor David Fidler, who has met
with tech and government officials about terrorism. "I actually
have a lot of sympathy for the social media companies."
PasteBin didn't respond to a request for comment.
Tech firms' response to questionable content is largely to
remove it retroactively after it has been flagged by users. So
hundreds, if not thousands, of people could see the content before
it gets pulled, researchers say. A 26-second YouTube video
explaining how to carry out a truck attack was viewed more than 360
times by Monday evening since it was posted Sunday.
The video suggested using a "double-wheeled, load-bearing truck"
to attack "large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and
parades," among other targets. The video was unlisted, meaning
viewers could only find it if given a link to it, suggesting it was
shared among viewers.
Rick Eaton, a researcher at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which
tracks hateful online content, said on Monday that he flagged it to
YouTube twice. The video was pulled minutes after The Wall Street
Journal asked YouTube about it around 6:15 p.m. Eastern time on
Monday.
YouTube said it bars videos that aim to recruit terrorists or
incite violence, and that it acts quickly to remove content flagged
for violating those policies. The company said it also terminates
accounts run by terrorist organizations and is committed "to tackle
these complex problems and to see what more we can do to ensure
that we're part of the solution."
Twitter said it is expanding its use of technology to combat
terrorist content. From July through December last year, Twitter
said internal technology flagged 74% of the 376,890 accounts it
suspended for promoting terrorism.
Facebook has created a team dedicated to removing terrorist
content and has been promoting "counter speech," or posts that aim
to discredit militant groups like Islamic State.
Facebook said that program has grown over the past year and that
it wants to be a "hostile environment for terrorists."
Telegram's founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, said in
Telegram messages Monday that his service is "constantly increasing
the number of moderators to deal with these threats." He said every
channel related to the terrorist group Islamic State is taken down
within 24 hours of being reported.
It isn't clear if the three London Bridge attackers were
radicalized online or used encrypted apps to communicate. The BBC
reported Monday that one of the men involved had followed a radical
Islamic preacher on the internet, citing a former friend of the
man.
The preacher, Ahmad Musa Jibril, is described by
counterterrorism experts as a radical cheerleader who encourages
people to take action without explicitly exhorting violent jihad. A
2014 study by the U.K.-based International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation said 60% of foreign fighters they tracked in Syria
followed him on Twitter.
Mr. Jibril couldn't be reached for comment.
Mr. Jibril has accounts on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, with a
combined 306,000 followers -- though they haven't posted since 2014
-- and his 130 YouTube videos have amassed more than 1.5 million
views.
YouTube said its review of Mr. Jibril's videos found they don't
violate its policies because the videos discuss general Islamic
themes -- such as fasting, interpretations of the Quran, and the
use of Western medicine -- and don't advocate violence.
To be sure, propaganda videos -- regardless of platform -- are
usually just the tip of the iceberg. Experts say that extremely few
radicals take action solely on the basis of social media
consumption. Instead, potential recruits generally move eventually
into peer-to-peer communication with a handler either online or
offline or both.
"Social media increases exposure so more people are exposed,"
said Peter Weinberger, a senior researcher at the National
Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at
the University of Maryland. "But it is very rarely the case that
someone will just view content online and take action by
themselves."
--Stu Woo contributed to this article.
Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com, Sam Schechner at
sam.schechner@wsj.com and Deepa Seetharaman at
Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 05, 2017 21:36 ET (01:36 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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