News and Media

It’s understood that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sorts through terrorism threats daily, but these threats are changing – and multiplying. FBI Director Christopher Wray told CBS News in an interview last week that the bureau made “about 120” terror-related arrests last year alone. He explained that the number of homegrown violent extremists alone led to 1,000 of about 5,000 total terrorism investigations. The implications of those numbers are bleak, as cyber threats both new and emerging were “at an all-time high.”

Facebook was back on the public relations trail this week, as Mark Zuckerberg provided an in-depth interview to The New Yorker . When speaking to Mr. Zuckerberg , reporter Evan Osnos recalled Facebook’s failures to moderate hate speech and extremism, from the WhatsApp-driven riots, lynchings and beatings in India, to the facilitation of weapons trading in Libya, to fueling false rumors leading to religious violence in Sri Lanka. Most striking however, was Facebook’s five-year long struggle to clamp down on ethnic violence in Myanmar, despite frequent promises to do so.

The European Commission today released its regulation on terrorist content online. While the legislation is a step forward, it is is flawed in that it gives tech companies one hour from the time a piece of content is flagged as being extremist to take it down. However, the technology exists for these companies to remove extremist content as soon as it is uploaded. It is dangerous to extend the deadline for removal – in just two hours an extremist video can receive hundreds of views. CEP Executive Director David Ibsen said: "We welcome the European Commission's step forward in the fight against extremist content online, but, unfortunately, it falls short of instilling a clear solution to the growing problem of illegal content online."

A new European far-right group calling themselves Order of Dawn has apparently started a cryptocurrency crowdfunding campaign for their violent “ Reconquista ” of Europe. Order of Dawn endorses racism and anti-Semitism. Specifically, the group is opposed to African and Middle Eastern migration to Europe, calling it an “invasion” and a “genocide,” and claims that the Jewish-owned media are hiding the true nature of the problem. The group claims to be based in one of the Visegrad states (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, or Slovakia).

New research shows that the use of hate speech and extremism online has “surged on shadowy social media platforms” like 4chan and Gab.ai, with “white-supremacist themes” targeting Jews and African Americans. Social media alone is not to blame and web host providers such as San Francisco-based Cloudflare allow extremist groups to create their own platforms in order to leverage their messaging and propaganda. Siege Culture (siegeculture.biz), a neo-Nazi propaganda website, uses the company as its nameserver .

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday and as expected, her testimony was filled with familiar refrains, PR-laden apologies, proclamations of supposed successes and promises to do more. When ISIS, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups have continually misused and abused Facebook to spread their propaganda and incite violence, thereby clearly violating the company’s terms of services, phrases such as “we'll get back to you" and "that's on us" are unacceptable.

So, it is the case again. Social media companies are facilitating the mobilization of radical and dangerous groups. Just over a week ago, neo-Nazis took to the streets in Germany to demonstrate and intimidate any outsiders or immigrants. Following the stabbing and death of a 35-year-old at a festival in the Chemnitz City Center, rumors began making the rounds on social media websites that the perpetrators were migrants. Quickly, these rumors manifested into anger, centralized and focused on one group: refugees. The demonstrators caught police on their heels, harassed journalists, targeted counter-protestors and injured at least two people.