The Obama administration has struggled to craft a cohesive
strategy to diminish the online presence of Islamic State, which
uses Twitter Inc and other Internet platforms to spread violent
propaganda and radicalize new recruits.
Nine government agencies attended the meeting including the State
Department, according to a list of attendees seen by Reuters. Also
present were representatives of the United Nations, as well as
companies including Twitter, Facebook Inc, Alphabet Inc's Google,
Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Snapchat, among others. Advocacy
groups and universities also participated.
Social media companies have ramped up efforts to take down jihadist
content. Facebook policies explicitly ban support of what it deems
terrorist groups, and Twitter announced this month it has taken down
more than 125,000 accounts for "promoting terrorist acts."
"We've seen more aggressive takedowns across social media platforms,
which is a really good thing," Nick Rasmussen, director of the
National Counterterrorism Center, said at the meeting, according to
a participant.
John Carlin, assistant attorney general for national security, led
the briefing by providing an overview of Islamic State's media
strategy and expressing a desire to increase the "scale (of)
counter-narratives and optimistic messaging," according to an agenda
seen by Reuters.
Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the program on extremism at George
Washington University, who attended the meeting, said he was pleased
to see more outside participants and fewer government officials.
"It was a better conversation than I've seen in the past," he told
Reuters. "It's great to have a meeting, but what do you actually do
next?"
U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, a former Google
executive, led a discussion, according to the agenda.
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"The U.S. government recognizes that these private-sector actors,
which include NGOs, social media companies, and content producers,
have a crucial role to play in developing creative and effective
ways to undermine terrorist recruiting," department spokesman Marc
Raimondi said in a statement. "NGO" is an acronym for
"nongovernmental organization."
Wednesday's summit comes amid prolonged tensions between Silicon
Valley and the Obama administration. Those strains were exacerbated
by the legal standoff between Apple and the Justice Department that
erupted last week over access to an iPhone belonging to one of the
San Bernardino killers, Syed Rizwan Farook.
The meeting is the second in as many months between Silicon Valley
executives and senior administration officials to discuss how
companies can clamp down on violent content.
But the interest goes beyond content removal. Several agencies,
including the Department of Homeland Security and Department of
Justice, have worked recently to involve tech companies such as
Facebook, Muslim community groups and university students to create
"positive" content to dissuade people from joining violent extremist
groups.
Several social media firms have responded to pressure from the White
House and lawmakers who have urged more cooperation over the past
year.
(Additional reporting by Julia Edwards and Mark Hosenball in
Washington and Deborah Todd in San Francisco; Editing by Andrew Hay
and Matthew Lewis)
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