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I recently had a really scary interview about how tech platforms feed radicalization. For example: let’s say you find a YouTube video about Jews taking over the world. It suggests 10 more videos about Jews taking over the world and people go down the rabbit hole, never to return.
Never before have we been at a point in our history where people contextually vulnerable to this kind of radicalization are able to access unlimited information confirming their beliefs and instantly build communities with others like them.
You constantly see this with white supremacist killers. They start with certain vulnerabilities in their psychological profiles, but “they seemed so normal and nice,” people say. Then they go down the rabbit hole and the next thing you know they’re mass shooters.
It’s tricky because these tech platforms have to balance free speech with concerns about inciting violence. Do you censor people who say all Jews and Muslims should die? Or do you let them nurture those beliefs, allow them to fester and infect the next killer?
It’s a scary time in counterterrorism. How do you fight something so nebulous and difficult to police as Internet-driven radicalization? Especially when law enforcement is so studiously neglecting the white supremacist threat in favor of jihadism?
Just to be clear, jihadists also follow this model of radicalization through the Internet (as well as many other shared characteristics), but those activities are much more closely monitored and statistics show white supremacists are a greater threat right now.
One thing is clear: we are vastly unprepared for the problem of self-radicalization through the Internet and we need to find a way to address it because as much as we don’t want to think about it, the next mass shooter is tapping away at his computer as I tweet.
