News and Media

CEP reports weekly on the methods used by extremists to exploit the Internet and social media platforms to recruit followers and incite violence. Although Cloudflare has ceased providing services 8chan , which hosted alleged El Paso attacker Patrick Crusius ’ manifesto online, it continues to provide services to a pro-ISIS propaganda repository.

Suspected gunman Patrick Crusius uploaded a 2,300 word manifesto on 8chan’s politically incorrect board, an online message board known for attracting far-right and neo-Nazi users, shortly before launching his shooting rampage in El Paso, Texas last weekend. Subsequently, Internet infrastructure providers Cloudflare and Tucows came under fire for their provision of services to 8chan . Unfortunately—though unsurprisingly—these companies took action to sever ties to 8chan , finally taking it offline, after much “ waffling ” and inane justifications of free speech .

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fined Facebook a record-breaking $5 billion for giving third parties access to information that Facebook users did not want to share. Among the settlement’s terms, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg is to remove himself as a privacy decision-maker, create an independent committee to oversee decisions, and have an independent body certify the effectiveness of Facebook’s privacy programs.

On July 24, 2019, a suicide bomber walked into a high-level security meeting in the mayor’s office in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, and detonated explosives. The attack killed six people and seriously injured another six, including mayor Abdirahaman Omar Osman. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility, but stated that the intended target was James Swan—an American diplomat who is the United Nations’ special representative for Somalia.