A report from the Counter Extremism Project describes a pro-ISIS chat on RocketChat in which a user allegedly interrogated an "uncensored AI" for technical information on explosives and destructive capabilities. The case reopens the debate on decentralized platforms, propaganda, and radicalization.

The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) reports on the methods used by extremists and terrorist groups on the Internet to spread propaganda and incite violence. Last week, CEP researchers found a conversation in a pro-ISIS chatroom, where an individual claimed to have used an AI program to ask the quantity of explosives necessary for a terrorist attack. The same user claimed that using a paid version of the same AI could yield instructions for making explosives. CEP researchers were unable to confirm this in a test of the same AI platform.

“The online sphere is 100% key to these attacks,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, the former coordinator of the United Nations Security Council’s panel on Islamic State and al Qaeda. […] The man then connected online with Islamic State sympathizers and spread extremist content, he added. Acting on the group’s advice available online, he bought a kitchen knife—rather than one that might draw officials’ notice—and stabbed the victims’ necks to increase the likelihood they would die, said Schindler, who is now senior director at the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit that combats extremist ideologies.

CEP Senior Advisor Alexander Ritzmann stated, "To counter extremism, we must focus not only on individual acts of antisemitism, but on the strategy and financing of extremists. We are talking about a real network of organized antisemitism." To do this, Ritzmann stated, "It is necessary to distinguish those who practice professional antisemitism from people who hold antisemitic ideas." Ritzmann also highlighted the distinction between those who organize and those who commit acts of antisemitism. But there are also different ways of being antisemitic: "There are those who use antisemitic narratives to justify violence, out of solidarity with the enemy of my enemy, and those who write online comments that glorify terrorism. Antisemitism is changing."