Wednesday, November 1st 2017 (WASHINGTON) – As representatives from the top social media sites, Facebook, Twitter and Google were testifying on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a self-radicalized individual used a rental truck to carry out a deadly terrorist attack in Manhattan that left 8 people dead and a dozen more injured.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) described the timing of the attack was “ironic,” given the testimony provided by experts suggesting that social media companies were not doing everything possible to effectively combat online terrorist recruitment and radicalization
“I think it’s very ironic that as we were having a hearing about how radical Islam is using the internet to recruit in our own backyard, within the timeframe of the hearing we had an attack by somebody who seems to fit that profile,” Graham told reporters at a Tuesday press conference.
While the social media giants have claimed some success in creating algorithms and other tools to block and quickly remove terrorist content from their platforms, experts cast doubt on whether they are actually doing enough. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, terrorism analyst Michael S. Smith II, told lawmakers that Facebook, Twitter and Google “are not doing all they possibly can to mitigate threats” that emanate from their platforms.
“I believe we could do an exponential amount” to combat online terrorist recruitment and radicalization efforts, Smith said. “We have the capability. It’s not being employed.”
HOW GROUPS EXPLOIT SOCIAL MEDIA FOR ‘DO-IT-YOURSELF TERRORISM’
According to authorities, the suspect in the New York City truck attack, Sayfullo Saipov, was born in Uzbekistan and came to the United States in 2010 under the so-called Diversity Lottery Visa. It wasn’t until he arrived in the U.S. that he became “domestically radicalized,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said.
“The evidence shows,” Cuomo told CNN, “that after he came to the United States is when he started to become informed about ISIS and radical Islamic tactics.”
The current publicly available evidence does not suggest the suspect was part of a larger terrorist organization or cell, but was inspired by the Islamic State’s ideology and tactics.
According to reports, Saipov was actively using social media to connect to individuals who are or were the subjects of terror investigations. Saipov himself was the subject of an FBI investigation in 2015, but officials were unable to find enough evidence to convict him.
As the suspect recovers from his injuries, investigators are piecing together Saipov’s online history. What they have found so far is a disturbingly common profile in these low-tech terror attacks, a lone-wolf sympathetic to and eventually influenced to act on ISIS extremist propaganda.
As the incident was first being reported, Smith took note of “an explosion of chatter” on Islamic State-linked social media channels where users were promoting the attacker.
“When they promote information about these types of incidents,” he explained, “what it serves to accomplish is to remind so-called fence sitters [in the West] … of how easy it is to go out and do the things that the group’s leadership has prescribed, specifically executing very simple attacks.”
ISIS has called on its supporters in the West to carry out attacks wherever they are using whatever materials they have available. So far in 2017, there have been four deadly truck attacks allegedly inspired by the Islamic State, two in London, one in Barcelona and the Tuesday attack in New York.
As recent incidents in Europe and the United States have proven, the messaging promoting those kinds of attacks has proven difficult to counter, contain or use to predict who may actually carry out a future attack.
According to Chris Meserole, a Brookings Institution expert on radicalization and new technology, lone actors who engage in “do-it-yourself terrorism” pose a unique challenge for law enforcement and intelligence officials.
“The challenge for do-it-yourself terrorism is pretty significant,” he explained, noting terrorist recruitment can happen with just a few taps on a smartphone. “They download the app, they might click on a hashtag and then they’re one or two more taps away from connecting to someone who could point them in a violent direction.”
Despite Twitter nixing nearly one million accounts used by individuals with known terrorist links, the platform is still being used by technologically savvy extremists to make initial contact with would-be recruits. At that point, they have a suite of apps with end-to-end encryption, like Telegram or WhatsApp, where they can directly communicate with individuals without detection.
In the case of the New York City attack, there is currently no evidence that the suspect was directly communicating with an ISIS operative.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Among lawmakers, there is a growing concern that social media sites who have so far been allowed to self-regulate, have not been willing or able to take the steps needed to combat online radicalization or the misuse of their platforms by other nefarious actors.
As lawmakers investigate the misuse of online ads and social media platforms by Russian operatives, lawmakers on the left and right have shown a new willingness to put new laws in place regulating the tech giants.
“Right now the internet and social media outlets are ungoverned space,” Sen. Graham said. “There is no law in this area.”
He continued that terrorists are using “cyber ungoverned spaces to generate attacks against us” and to recruit and radicalize people within the country. “There’s going to be more of this.”
President Donald Trump has issued a call to action following the Tuesday attack, that includes making changes to the U.S. immigration system and possibly changing the punishment for terrorist offenses.
“We have to get much tougher,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday. “We need quick justice and we need strong justice. Much quicker and much stronger than what we have right now, because what we have right now is a joke and a laughing stock.”
It was unclear what measures the president has in mind for making the prosecution of terrorism cases “stronger,” but Sen. Graham told reporters that he spoke with President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions about trying terrorism suspects as unlawful enemy combatants, rather than criminals.
Graham said he believes Trump is “inclined to be aggressive” and overturn President Barack Obama’s practice of proscuting terrorism in criminal courts. Instead, terrorists suspects could be detained under the U.S. law of armed conflict and interrogated for the purpose of gathering intelligence.
The rise of terrorist and foreign nation-state abuse of online platforms has also led some lawmakers to reconsider regulating the technology giants.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who has historically been opposed to imposing new laws the industry, was weighing the options. While he disagrees with any measure that would stifle free speech on the platforms, he noted, “On the other hand, we know radicalization can come through these platforms.”
Still, when it comes to the government’s role, Grassley said, “I don’t think we’ve drawn any conclusion yet.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) noted that his philosophy for a long time has been to leave internet and social media companies alone. But given the ability of bad actors to operate on platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube regulation might be in the cards.
“I don’t want to turn to social media companies and say edit content,” he noted, “but at the same time I don’t want to allow people to [use the sites] to recruit terrorists.”
The Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism is currently planning follow-up hearings to look into additional steps social media companies can take to prevent terrorist abuse of their platforms.
