News and Media

In advance of the upcoming Congressional hearings featuring testimony from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg , CEP called on Facebook and other tech companies to take a more aggressive approach to the spread of fake news enabled by widely available artificial intelligence (AI) tools. “As we have seen, the issue of fake news proliferating online is something that will not simply disappear,” said Dr. Hany Farid , CEP Senior Advisor and Dartmouth College Computer Science Professor.

CEP called on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to respond to the proliferation of extremist and terrorist content on Facebook during his upcoming appearances at Senate and House committee hearings. CEP believes Zuckerberg must answer for Facebook’s failure to promptly identify and permanently remove radicalizing extremist content, especially in light of a recently leaked memo which minimized Facebook's concerns about public safety versus company growth.

CEP called on members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has confirmed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to finally force answers to questions about a record of platform misuse. CEP has long-advocated for lawmakers on Cap itol Hill to hold tech companies accountable for their actions, including the proliferation of extremist content online.

The deadliest act of terrorism in Belgium’s history took place on the morning of March 22, 2016 in Brussels, when ISIS suicide bombers killed 32 people and wounded more than 300 others in attacks at the Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station. While no large-scale attacks have occurred since, the threat from large numbers of battle-hardened foreign fighters re-entering the country, the problem of prison radicalization, and the availability of radicalizing ISIS propaganda online continues to pose a challenge to security official in Belgium.

CEP commended the U.K. parliamentarians of the Home Affairs Select Committee for exposing YouTube’s gross failure to remove videos from the banned far right group National Action from its platform 15 months after being reviewed by moderators. CEP called on governments and advertisers to demand that tech companies dedicate serious resources to the permanent removal of radicalizing, horrific content online and that engineers and developers, rather than public relations professionals, are called to answer the tough questions.

On the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood, CEP is publishing resources on the history and recent activities of the group in Egypt and Turkey, Since its inception in Egypt 90 years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood has fought for the establishment of a global caliphate ruled by sharia law.

Decades of sectarian fighting have undermined Lebanese sovereignty and allowed global extremist groups like Iranian proxy Hezbollah to flourish in the country. CEP's report on extremism and counter-extremism in Lebanon highlights the forces that led to Iran's development of Hezbollah in the 1980s, the group's role in propping up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and its malign activities in other parts of the world.

CEP Executive Director David Ibsen issued a short statement regarding the U.K. Home Office's development of new technology to combat online extremist content that read in part: “Unfortunately, it is concerning that the tech industry’s failure to act has compelled the U.K. government to rely on taxpayer funding, rather than the tech companies themselves, to develop technologies to counter this enormous threat. Tech must take responsibility for the content hosted and shared on their platforms and do more to protect its consumers—the public at large—from the real-life consequences of extremism online.”

CEP's new resource, Guide to Online Propagandists, profiles online radical thought leaders who are active on social media platforms like YouTube and encourage violence and hate. While YouTube in November 2017 banned the videos of notorious al-Qaeda propagandist and recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki, many more radicalizing propagandists and ideologues have been allowed to remain online.

CEP is providing resources on extremism and counter-extremism in Canada on the anniversary of the January 29 attack at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Center in Quebec City. Right-wing extremist Alexandre Bissonnette is accused of carrying out the attack that killed six people and wounded 19.