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Nami LaChance writes at The Intercept that a google-incubated program that targets potential ISIS members with deradicalizing content will soon be used to target violent right-wing extremists in North America. Using research and targeted advertising, the initiative by London-based startup Moonshot CVE and Google's Jigsaw technology incubator targets potentially violent Jihadis and directs them to a YouTube channel with videos that refute ISIS propaganda. In the pilot program countering ISIS, the so-called Redirect Method collected the metadata of 320,000 individuals over the course of eight weeks, using 1,700 keywords, and served them advertisements that led them to the videos.
"I think this is an extremely promising method," says Richard Stengel, U.S. Undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs. In the ISIS pilot program, the YouTube channel pulls preexisting videos that, according to Yasmin Green, the head of research and development for Jigsaw, "refute ISIS's messaging." One video is from a woman who secretly filmed her life in ISIS-controlled Raqqa. Another shows young people in Mosul, their faces obscured by keffiyehs for their protection, talking about life under the Islamic State. "The branding philosophy for the entire pilot project was not to appear judgmental or be moralistic, but really to pique interest of individuals who have questions, questions that are being raised and answered by the Islamic State."
Ross Frenett, co-founder of Moonshot, says his company and Jigsaw are now working with funding from private groups to target other violent extremists, including the hard right in America. "Our efforts during phase two, when we're going to focus on the violent far right in America, will be very much focused on the small element of those that are violent. The interesting thing about how they behave is they're a little bit more brazen online these days than ISIS fan boys," says Frenett.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday September 09 2016, @06:36AM
"violent right-wing extremists" and "other violent extremists, including the hard right"
Nope, no bias at all here. I must be a gun totting nut for carrying a gun who is hell-bent on removing the menace of color.
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(Score: 3, Touché) by FatPhil on Friday September 09 2016, @07:42AM
No, you're a gun-toting, and perhaps spelling-deficient, nut for the *personification* of an inanimate weapon.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @08:03AM
It was downhill after the Southern Poverty Law Center got to shakedown "hategroups". What? You think voicing an unconscionable opinion didn't have backlash? It's McCarthyism all over again.
And all it does is galvanize the minority opinion to where compromise of any sort is untenable, as the alt-right (notice how that's come into vogue the past few weeks even though it's been around for a few years now) justifies itself and its paranoia.
Bravo!
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday September 09 2016, @02:12PM
Is it "bias" if it's based on documented truth?
There are really truly dangerous right-wing nutjobs out there. I'm not talking about the guys who will vote for Trump and then go home and have a beer. I'm talking about the guys that decided it was a great idea to walk into a church, temple, Jewish community center, or abortion clinic guns blazing. Or the guys who seek out black people at random and kill them. Or the clowns that tried to provoke a civil war rather than pay a bill. Or the guys that decided to blow up a federal office building. Or the guy who, in response to an IRS audit, decided to crash his plane into their offices. Or the guy who, truly believing right-wing rhetoric, decided the correct response to government actions to make him follow the same laws as everyone else, decided the right response was to kill 4 cops, a judge, and a bystander who had tried to protect the judge.
I've met guys who are trying to create personal arsenals for the race war they're sure is coming. And right-wing Christians who see the current wars in the Middle East as a great crusade intended to kick-start the apocalypse.
Now, you might argue "Sure, but that's a tiny minority of right wingers, and they don't really represent anything close to the majority viewpoint." The thing is, ISIS is a tiny minority of Muslims too.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tibman on Friday September 09 2016, @02:37PM
I think that kind of extremism doesn't follow a left/right pattern. The people who shoot police in support of #blacklivesmatter are on the left-end of the spectrum, not the right. The people who blow up petroleum refineries and oil pipelines (eco-terrorism) are also on the left-end. It's all extreme, which is a more important fact (imo) than which end of the spectrum they are on.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday September 09 2016, @03:20PM
I agree with your basic thinking: Once an ideology decides that it's OK to kill anybody who disagrees with them, all bets are off. And all people across the spectrum should condemn that idea within their own groups.
What is also true, right now, in the US, is that the population of right-wingers who are in that space ideologically is much larger than the population of left-wingers in that same space. That is because the right wing currently does not have its leadership condemning violence, and in fact much of the right wing leadership is currently advocating carrying the tools of violence wherever you go and being prepared to use them at any time. The left wing has been there before (e.g. John Brown's raids in the 1850's, or the Black Panthers), but isn't there now, probably because they are having significant success in turning their preferred policies into reality using the legal political process. And I'm not just talking about the mild-mannered hippie vegan types: I've hung out with some guys billing themselves as the Revolutionary Communist Party, and even they aren't advocating, say, rounding up the Waltons and sending them to the firing squad.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @04:16PM
Of the 3 most recent mass shootings in America, 2 were Islamic individuals lashing out against perceived sleights to their religious views. Views which the left, traditionally the home of secularity, have been bizarrely embracing. One of the shooters was a registered democrat with very strong ties to the democratic party. The other was a person who was driven by the Black Lives Matter movement to begin murdering police, something which many would later applaud on social media. On the less dire scenario you have left leaning individuals assaulting people at political rallies and aggressively working to suppress dissenting views from being heard by any means possible. Of course on the other side you also have the Planned Parenthood shooter, the black church shooting, and so on.
Even as an extremely left leaning individual, I'm becoming rather jaded from the one-sided focus on extremism in the United States. In many ways I think this might even be working to further radicalize people as it fulfills their paranoia and suspicions of some sort of government and media conspiracy to frame all violence as being right winged. In any case going hard in one direction almost always comes back to bite you. Germany is an obvious example. Their country now seems to be regressing rapidly towards a more ethnic nationalistic view. Things need to be done in moderation with consideration, and condemnation as appropriate, without bias. This action, and nearly actions of government-corporation coplayers in the US as of late have come with extreme bias. Newton's Third applies in more ways than just physics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @06:31PM
> Of the 3 most recent mass shootings in America, 2 were Islamic individuals lashing out against perceived sleights to their religious views.
> One of the shooters was a registered democrat with very strong ties to the democratic party. The other was a person who was driven by
> the Black Lives Matter movement to begin murdering police, something which many would later applaud on social media
Nope. Not even close to true.
https://www.massshootingtracker.org/data [massshootingtracker.org]
> Even as an extremely left leaning individual,
Congratulations you are no longer on the left, if you really ever were.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @10:02PM
You might want to be a little more specific with your links. There's nothing at your link to support your bare assertion. Now, if your link has a link to the evidence you wanted to present, I suggest using that last one next time.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday September 09 2016, @06:07PM
There's an ideology that openly embraces this idea. It's called authoritarianism. And unfortunately, it's a lot more popular than what TFA is about.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:26AM
How 'bout Hearst, and Ayers? The Unabomber. The left has it's share of violent extremists in this country.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday September 10 2016, @12:50PM
Hearst and Ayers did their thing decades ago, which as I said was a period in which the left had the same problem of violent extremists.
As for the Unabomber, I don't think I'd call him a left-winger - he spends a lot of his manifesto criticizing the left wing folks and makes it pretty clear he doesn't see himself as one of them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @03:26PM
oh no, someone attacked/killed irs agents, abortionists, ATF, FBI, some cops and a judge? Sycophants like you might be next.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:06PM
There are really truly dangerous right-wing nutjobs out there. I'm not talking about the guys who will vote for Trump and then go home and have a beer.
Only the 'right' create extremists?
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dallas-police-ambush/protests-spawn-cities-across-u-s-over-police-shootings-black-n605686 [nbcnews.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/ [cnn.com]
Both of these guys were in the supposedly 'left' democrat party. The DNC has failed as a 'left' party. They just the same party they always were with a different tune. Segregation and violent rhetoric espoused at every turn. They just change the names every once and awhile to make sure it can CTR.
Something like BLM is turning into a full on hate group. If google is willing to censor other right wing groups? Why not this one? Or the others out there? Google is setting itself up in a very precarious position of trying to be the guardian of the internet. Completly wooshing why people go to google. People goto google search because it is good enough and better than most. But other search can do just as good. They risk turning into a secondary search choice. At that point it is over for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @02:12PM
Quit victimizing yourself. The American far-right have more in common with Wahhabism than any other political group in their own context. Own it or get the fuck out.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @05:44PM
Nope. No bias at all [newsweek.com]: