contributed by Sajid Amit & Lumbini Barua, 15 December 2020

Although terror attacks have existed since time immemorial, the September 11 attacks in New York marked a new chapter. It was a chilling reminder of the potency of violent extremism (VE) as we woke up to the existence of international terror networks, far more virulent than we had imagined.

Our collective fears amplified as, between 2015-16, a spate of attacks took place in Paris, Brussels and Munich. Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) entered official academic and diplomatic lexicon in 2015, borne from the realization that VE is not constituted of isolated acts of violence but is strategically executed. Hence, it required a terminology to bring attention to it, and more importantly, new approaches to counter it.

Bangladesh has experienced violence fueled by religious extremism in different phases. The most infamous and tragic manifestation was the “Holey Artisan Bakery attack” in 2016. This event received global attention as militants brutally killed 22 people of different nationalities after holding them hostage overnight in the country’s poshest restaurant.

Figure 1. The Holey Artisan Bakery Attack. Source: The Daily Star

In recent years, with access to the internet and social media becoming ubiquitous, extremists at home and overseas have learned to weaponize the internet. They are adept at disseminating extremist propaganda online, recruiting individuals as well as planning and coordinating attacks.

Meanwhile, as COVID-19 ravages lives and livelihoods, violent extremism is back on the radar. The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) has found that extremists across the ideological spectrum are viewing the global crisis as an opportunity to expand reach and influence. They have observed certain new trends including increased spread of disinformation, conspiracy theories, and propaganda, as watchdogs and international security agencies have become relatively relaxed.

Figure 2. Army action during Dhaka Attack. Source: Al Jazeera

In general, utilization of cyberspace to orchestrate online radicalization has been a major challenge in Bangladesh since 2013.  From 2013 to 2016, at least 12 secular bloggers and activists in the country were brutally killed by extremist groups. From a survey of 250 arrested militants, conducted by the Bangladesh Police, it was revealed that 82% were radicalized via social media. COVID-19 has reportedly exacerbated this situation. In July 2020, there was a security alert for an impending attack by Neo JMB, a home-grown extremist group, spun off from the original JMB, or the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. Moreover, there have been multiple recent arrests in different parts of the country, including Gazipur and Sylhet.

Countering Violent Extremism Online: Global Best Practices

The Center for Enterprise and Society (CES) at ULAB, a leading university-based think tank in Bangladesh, has recently conducted a study on countering violent extremism using innovative digital and web-based technologies. The aim of the study was to analyze global best practices and identify strategies applicable to the Bangladesh context. Successful online-based interventions that have been deployed globally, are outlined below.

The Redirect Method

This is a joint initiative between Jigsaw, Moonshot CVE, Quantum Communications and a group of researchers. The Redirect Method targets audiences who are actively looking for content shared by IS and redirects them towards curated YouTube videos countering extremist ideologies.

The process with which the aforementioned team built the Redirect Method is quite interesting. First, the founding group conducted extensive research, interviewing IS defectors and mapping major IS narratives. From this, they identified recruitment narratives used by IS. Second, they created a playlist of videos from YouTube either in English or Arabic. While curating these YouTube videos to debunk extremist messages, they carefully selected credible and authentic counter-narratives.

Finally, they placed the playlist alongside the results for the predetermined keywords and phrases that potential IS recruits search for. Through this, counter-narrative videos continue to reach potential IS disciples the same way advertising campaigns reach potential customers. In its pilot phase of 8 weeks, this campaign reached 320,906 individuals who cumulatively watched about half a million minutes worth of curated videos.

The eGLYPH Technology

Professor Hany Farid, Chair, Computer Science Department at Dartmouth College, and Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) developed the “eGLYPH Technology” to prevent extremist contents from resurfacing after they are taken down by various platforms. This technology assigns a unique fingerprint or digital signature called “hash” to differentiate e-contents that have already been identified and flagged, and automatically removes any versions of those from different social networks and websites.

To date, the CEP has created a database of hashes composed of 229 full-length IS videos, clips, and other visual propaganda. They also identified 183 keywords which are associated with IS. With the help of a web crawler, eGLYPH conducts searches using YouTube’s API every 20 minutes throughout the day looking for any audio, video or image uploads that match with the hashes of the database. Therefore, as soon as any content’s hash is added to the database, it becomes virtually impossible to re-upload that content ever again to any web platform.  

Figure 3. Violent extremism online. Source: CEP

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the field of computing and human interactions with computers. In response to extremist groups’ increasing activities online, Internet companies in general and social media companies in particular, have intensified the use of AI to tackle online radicalization.

In June 2017, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube announced the formation of a joint platform called the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) to combat the spread of extremist propaganda online. Gradually, other companies such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Dropbox, Reddit, Snap, and Yellow joined as well. 

With the help of AI technology, Facebook took down 837 million spam contents, 2.5 million promoting hate speech, and disabled 583 million accounts worldwide just in the first quarter of 2018. Over a span of 23 months starting August 2015, Twitter suspended a million accounts that promoted violence. In the latter half of 2017, YouTube deleted 150,000 videos spreading violence and extremism. In short, there has indeed been great progress in this space. 

Recommendations for Bangladesh

Research in CVE in Bangladesh have, thus far, focused on biographies and backgrounds of militants. Some research exists on driving factors that led people down this path of radicalization. However, the role of social media and how violent extremism can be caused by social media in Bangladesh is a new area of research, and other than research of ULAB CES and that by the Bangladesh Police, is scarce. This research is important because more awareness is required for policymakers and private sector stakeholders, such as universities, think tanks, and even parents, to craft monitoring mechanisms at their different levels. Since the use of the internet and digital devices is expected to continue to increase, it is important for policy makers and shareholders to broaden the scope of research and knowledge.

This is doubly important at a time of the COVID pandemic. The global health crisis, as crises do, has exacerbated fault lines of race, ethnicity, class, and other identity-based differences. Several extremist efforts have taken place during this pandemic and they appear to have intensified in the recent months. Of course, anthropologists and sociologists have long argued that when there is a strain on resources at a time of crisis, minority groups tend to experience the brunt of the strain. Therefore, in light of increasing access to digital technologies by extremists, and the fault lines that COVID-19 appears to be exacerbating, it is critical for practitioners and researchers to be nimble, and cover newer grounds in research and programming in preventing and countering violent extremism.

 

Sajid Amit is the Director of Center for Enterprise and Society (CES) and an Associate Professor at University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: sajid.amit@ulab.edu.bd

Lumbini Barua is a Research Associate at Center for Enterprise and Society (CES), University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: lumbini.barua@ulab.edu.bd

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the blog editorial team or the Asia Research Institute.

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