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Violent extremism and social media
Did you know that behind the scenes OHPI helps tackle online extremism?
Dear Supporter,
It has been a hectic fortnight for OHPI since our last newsletter. We attended a high level government conference on countering violent extremism. We met with many of the social media companies. We attended both Jewish and Muslim community events co-run with the Victorian Parliament. Somehow we also released a barrage of briefings and campaigns to get hate removed, including our first briefing on Google+.
The regional summit Counter Violent Extremism, addressed by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and hosted by the Attorney General, looked at ways to disrupt the successful use of social media by Daesh (ISIS) to find vulnerable new recruits from Australia. It also discussed far right extremism. We thank the government for inviting us to participate in this important discussion on keeping Australia safe.
UNESCO has taken note of our work in a new report released this month. The report "Countering Online Hate Speech" discussed our online hate reporting tool FightAgainstHate.com and includes quotes from an interview the researchers behind the report conducted with me. It's great to see our expertise being recognised and used by international bodies.
In the last fortnight we have had numerous briefings related to Facebook. We successfully campaigned for the removal of a white supremacist page supporting Dylann Roof, the man who recently killed 9 black people in the US. We highlighted how Facebook is being gamed into shutting down anti-hate pages. We also called out Facebook for disallowing boost of content critical of Facebook.
Thank you to those who responded to our appeal for donations in the last newsletter. We still have a long way to go to secure our budget for 2015-2016 and we are entirely dependent on people's generosity to support the important work we do. If you can, please donate to support us, all donations are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Dr Andre Oboler
CEO, Online Hate Prevention Institute
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If you received this e-mail from a friend, please join our mailing list. If you have not already done so, please join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
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OHPI attends the CVE Summit
The Federal Government invited OHPI to attend the regional Counter Violent Extremism summit
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On June 11 and 12, OHPI attended the Regional Counter Violent Extremism Summit by the Australian Federal government in Sydney. The invitation-only summit follows a similar summit organised in Washington DC in February by the US government. It brought together, top government officials from around the world, executives from global technology companies and NGOs and academics tackling the rise of violent extremism.
The work we do and the Australian government’s agenda intersect on many different points. While our public work involves campaigning against hate on social media, we have also worked with the Federal government, Australian Federal Police, the Federal Attorney General’s Department, intelligence agencies, and state police on a number of incidents. These incidents include the targeting of individual Australians, extremists trying to incite race riots in Australia, incidents involving Daesh (ISIS) social media accounts either run from Australia or targeting Australia, and more.
Some of the points we shared with experts and officials at the conference include:
- How online far-right extremism can make some Muslim youth more susceptible to radicalisation and this is an additional reason to tackle such anti-Muslim hate.
- Our report Je Suis Humain: Responsible Free Speech in the Shadow of Charlie Hebdo where we highlight the need to tackle online antisemitism as part of the effort to reduce the threat of violent extremism from groups like Daesh.
We were pleased to have been able to contribute to the discussions at the Regional Summit and to have met leading experts from Australia and around the world. We were particularly pleased to have learned how many of the experts were already aware of our work and following up via our newsletters or on social media. If you know people who might find our work interesting, please do mention us to them and forward this e-mail along.
The briefing also highlighted three items of Holocaust denial to report along with instructions on how to do it.
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OTHER STORIES
Brief summary of other stories.
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Reporting "Jew Watch"
OHPI confronted antisemitism on Google+. In a briefing, we discussed a Google Group, its antisemitic character and content and called on our supporters to report this community to Google.
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Reporting guides to Google+
Google + is one of the less discussed social media platforms, but it too is rife with hatred and bigotry. We have added step-by-step guides to reporting hateful pages, posts and comments on Google +. You can access them here.
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Dylann Roof Support Page removed
On June 21, OHPI published a briefing calling for the removal of a white supremacist Facebook page set up to support Dylann Roof, the racist killer of 9 black people in Charleston, US. The page has since been removed.
because Jews were the original “other”, at least in Western culture - See more at: http://ohpi.org.au/the-why-of-rising-antisemitism/#sthash.1NIzi3I1.dpuf
Jews were the original “other”, at least in Western culture - See more at: http://ohpi.org.au/the-why-of-rising-antisemitism/#sthash.1NIzi3I1.dpuf
Jews were the original “other”, at least in Western culture - See more at: http://ohpi.org.au/the-why-of-rising-antisemitism/#sthash.1NIzi3I1.dpuf
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Freedom of Speech on Facebook
In this briefing, OHPI pointed out the hypocrisy of Facebook's claim that it stands for freedom of speech when it explicitly disallows promotion of content on its platform that criticises Facebook. Such limitations on speech in a virtual monopoly are dangerous.
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Facebook gamed
Using three recent examples, OHPI pointed out how Facebook's reporting system was being gamed by hate campaigners who were reporting anti-hate pages en masse. Our briefing helped one such page to get reinstated.
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OHPI covered in a UNESCO report
A recent report by UNESCO "Countering Online Hate Speech" quotes Dr Andre Oboler and discusses FightAgainstHate.com as an innovative approach to monitoring online hate.
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