Members of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade listen to testimony on ways the U.S. can address the spread of terrorism propaganda on social media. (Tyler Pager/MNS)
By Tyler Pager
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers trying to limit the spread of terrorist propaganda on social media say they are frustrated by tech companies’ opposition to expanded security measures.
“There needs to be an effort to work cooperatively with these private American companies to try to develop an industry standard on how you deal with these things,” said Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. “Drawing a line can be very tough as the discussion here today [Tuesday] demonstrated, but we should look for best practices among these companies.
Castro is a member of the Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The panel conducted a hearing this week to develop a strategy to limit social media use by terrorists, particularly in the wake of this month’s attacks in Paris.
Facebook prohibits the presence of groups with a link to terrorism, the company said in a statement, and users are encouraged to report inappropriate posts.
Social networks comprise 90% of terrorist groups’ online activities, said Mark Wallace, CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, citing a 2014 study by the Wilson Center. Private companies, he said, need to cooperate to limit the spread of propaganda.
Twitter, Wallace said, has not cooperated with his group’s request to discuss how to stop terrorists from using its site.
“Twitter’s dismissiveness on the issue of violent extremists who have hijacked and weaponized its platform can be best summarized in a quote given to Mother Jones magazine by a Twitter official: ‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,'” said Wallace, a former diplomat and Homeland Security official.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Subcommittee members tried to balance the need for action with maintaining individuals’ right to free speech.
“There is no doubt that social networking, the Internet and propaganda have become the premier recruitment and radicalization tools for terrorist gangs, expanding their reach far into Europe and the United States,” said Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts, the committee’s top Democrat.
Companies can remove terrorist propaganda but have no incentives to, said Evan Kohlmann, a counter-terrorism expert and chief innovation officer of Flashpoint Partners. They could use methods already in place for filtering out child pornography or stolen copyright material, he said.
“It’s just a matter of switching the search terms, the hash values, the images that they’re looking for,” Kohlmann said.
However, tech companies feel burned in the wake of disclosures about the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance efforts, which were disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
That lack of trust makes it difficult for the companies and the government to cooperate on this issue, said Rebecca MacKinnon, the director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation
“I don’t think law is going to solve the problem, but I’m also quite leery of just generally saying ‘OK, social media companies, you just police everything,'” MacKinnon said. “I think there needs to be a dialogue.”
