US State Department adopting social media to counter Al-Qaeda propaganda
US State Department adopting social media to counter Al-Qaeda propaganda
US says violent extremists increasingly taking to social media.
by David Kravets - Apr 30 2014, 3:44pm CDT
The State Department unveiled Wednesday that it is widely employing social media as a method to counter online violent extremism from Al-Qaeda and others.
Buried in an intelligence report published Wednesday, the government said that the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), established in 2011, last year produced more than 10,000 online postings globally, some of which included one of 138 government-produced videos.
"CSCC's programs draw on a full range of intelligence information and analysis for context and feedback. CSCC counters terrorist propaganda in the social media environment on a daily basis, contesting space where AQ and its supporters formerly had free rein. CSCC communications have provoked defensive responses from violent extremists on many of the 249 most popular extremist websites and forums as well as on social media," said the document, Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 (PDF).
The State Department has a global social media presence from Afghanistan to Vietnam. The platform ranges from blogs to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Instagram, and others.
But the government also trains others, including victims of terrorism, to adopt social media, according to the report.
More:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/us-state-department-adopting-social-media-to-counter-al-qaeda-propaganda/
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