The Arab Weekly: Fighting illicit content online
Communications technology is having a hard time keeping pace with disinformation on the internet, particularly the radicalising propaganda put out by terrorist groups. Despite strenuous international efforts, jihadist incitement remains difficult to remove from the World Wide Web. A report by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) casts doubt on YouTube’s proclaimed ability to expeditiously remove propaganda videos by the barbaric extremist group called the Islamic State (ISIS). CEP said that “91% of these ISIS videos were uploaded more than once; 24% of terrorist videos included in the study remained online for more than two hours; and 60% of the 278 accounts responsible for uploading the videos remained active after posting content that violated YouTube’s terms of service." CEP Executive Director David Ibsen said it was alarming that “despite big tech’s promises of combating online extremism and terrorism, noxious, previously prohibited content continues to persist across all major platforms.” Ibsen notes that ISIS videos were uploaded 163,000 times in the past three months. “That should be a wake-up call to lawmakers around the world that terror-inciting content remains pervasive and that these companies must do more to remove it once and for all.”
The Counter Extremism Project Presents
Enduring Music: Compositions from the Holocaust
Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Counter Extremism Project's ARCHER at House 88 presents a landmark concert of music composed in ghettos and death camps, performed in defiance of resurgent antisemitism. Curated with world renowned composer, conductor, and musicologist Francesco Lotoro, the program restores classical, folk, and popular works, many written on scraps of paper or recalled from memory, to public consciousness. Featuring world and U.S. premieres from Lotoro's archive, this concert honors a repertoire that endured against unimaginable evil.