digital diplomacy
As the public grapples with images of violent extremism advocated by the Islamic State group, UCLA students have developed a website and social movement aimed at slowing its spread by countering recruitment strategies. [...] The result is Safe Spot, which is designed to foster ideals of acceptance, safety, community and ultimately discourage isolated individuals from joining extremist groups.
Despite increasing efforts by western governments and social media providers to counter ISIS online, ISIS continues to produce and disseminate large quantities of ideologically inspired audio visual content and information.
![public domain](https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/default/files/styles/275x168/public/uploads/Paris_AF_0.png?itok=91hF9ZdV)
Ali Fisher on ISIS' social media savvy.
Politicians and some technologists say that [ISIS accounts], and hundreds just like it, show how Silicon Valley’s efforts to crack down on the use by terrorists of social media have been toothless [...] On Sunday, Hillary Clinton [...] called on tech companies to become more aggressive. “Resolve means depriving jihadists of virtual territory, just as we work to deprive them of actual territory,” she told an audience [...]
In introducing Manzoni, Nefkens described the UK as a world leader in the “digital transformation of government”, a model even for similar schemes in the USA and Australia. Furthermore, New Zealand has used Gov.uk source code - it’s based on open standards and is open source - to help build out own digital services.
#GivingTuesday was born four years ago to encourage people to open their wallets for a good cause...Some critics think #GivingTuesday clutters people's inboxes with empty fundraising appeals…On the other hand, it's hard to argue with the results. Last year alone, #GivingTuesday pulled in a whopping $46 million in charitable donations…The event has expanded to countries like Singapore, Kenya and New Zealand.
Anonymous splinter group GhostSec has taken its “war” on Isis to the darknet, replacing a propaganda forum with an advert for Prozac. The site was only recently set up within the Tor darknet by Isis, allegedly in response to Anonymous taking down hundreds of the terrorist group’s websites on the open web.
Cohen suggested that despite the terrorist group’s comprehensive social media presence, it’s realistic for the U.S.to destroy it digitally. Specifically, he argued that the objective should be to marginalize the terrorists and push them to the periphery of the Internet.