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. This week includes an overview of ISIS’ online activity glorifying the terrorist group’s Easter Sunday massacre at Sri Lankan hotels and churches on Facebook, YouTube and Telegram, among others. In addition, it includes neo-Nazi activity around Hitler’s birthday and neo-Nazi sales of anti-Semitic t-shirts on Teespring .

This week, Facebook and Twitter reported astronomic increases in revenue. Facebook’s year-over-year first quarter revenue increased more than 25 percent to $15.1 billion and Twitter’s increased nearly 20 percent to $787 million . Contrary to what tech firms may want lawmakers to believe, the cost of the industry’s controversies has been “ very little ” despite increased attention from regulators in Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Both companies have also promised time and time again to do more to eliminate extremist content online, but the continued existence of such material on their platforms makes clear that these promises are not enough.

CEP and the UN Office of Counter Terrorism will have a brown bag lunch and roundtable discussion on April 25 from 1-2:30 hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN. The topic of the free event will be the regulatory and technological efforts and challenges of countering the misuse of the internet and social media applications by terrorist organizations.

CEP and the UN Office of Counter Terrorism will have a brown bag lunch and roundtable discussion on April 25 from 1-2:30 hosted by the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the UN. The topic of the free event will be the regulatory and technological efforts and challenges of countering the misuse of the internet and social media applications by terrorist organizations.

CEP has documented Facebook’s reactionary policy changes since November 2007, exposing how the company typically makes improvements following public accusations, scandal or pressure from governments. This week, Facebook announced that it will begin blocking users who have violated its community guidelines from livestreaming videos. The change comes a month after the New Zealand shooter livestreamed his massacre of 50 people on its platform – an event which renewed criticism of Facebook’s inability to control its technology.