theintercept | A Google-incubated program that has been targeting potential
ISIS members with deradicalizing content will soon be used to target
violent right-wing extremists in North America, a designer of the
program said at an event at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
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. Collectively, the targets watched more than half a
million minutes of videos.
The event at Brookings was primarily about the existing program aimed
to undermine ISIS recruiting. “I think this is an extremely promising
method,” said Richard Stengel, U.S. undersecretary of state for public
diplomacy and public affairs.
Ross Frenett, co-founder of Moonshot, said his company and Jigsaw are
now working with funding from private groups, including the Gen Next
Foundation, to target other violent extremists, including on the hard
right.
“We are very conscious as our own organization and I know Jigsaw are
that this [violent extremism] is not solely the problem of one
particular group,” Frenett said.
“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,” Frenett said.
He noted that this new target demographic is more visible online.
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