
Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism - ajdlinux
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/how-we-counter-terrorism/
======
avaer
This post makes it seem like Facebook subscribes to the theory that hiding
unpleasant content prevents terrorism, and that there is universal global
agreement on what counts as terrorism.

Is there any scientific literature that supports this? The post seems to treat
it as a foregone conclusion and declares war on that basis, but I would love
to see the research before deciding whether I agree with what they're doing.

~~~
19eightyfour
Do you believe the propagation of narratives that try to justify illegal
terrorist violence help support terrorists? I agree with that idea. And
following from that basis, suppressing and/or countering such narratives is
correct.

~~~
dpwm
> Do you disagree with the idea that the propagation of narratives that
> pretend to support illegal terrorist violence does not actually help support
> terrorists?

I'm genuinely having trouble reading that sentence so I'm going to assume from
the rest of your quote that you are advocating the hypothesis that narratives
that attempt to justify terrorist violence supports terrorists. I think most
people would agree with that, but that is not what was questioned.

There currently seems to be a prevailing Western narrative unquestioned by
mass media that the most effective way to prevent terrorism is to control the
material people consume, especially on social media.

The TV and print media is full of the narratives of billionaire press barrons
and arms-exporting governments. If we accept that radicalisation is driven by
narratives that become accepted (we are the good guys) and that it is a
gradual process (opposed -> indifferent -> supporter -> active) how would we
even know if we were radicalised by the narratives that we consume?

Perhaps when we advocate detention without trial of terror suspects; the
abdandomnent of human rights laws for terror suspects; extra-judicial murder
for suspected terrorists; a war on foreign soil with the overt and
understandable intent that our armed forces should have zero casualties?

Personally, I think there is a case for censoring truly extreme material as
long as extreme caution is used so it doesn't spread to narratives which are
critical of government foreign policy and there is an equal silencing of the
overtly genocidal attitude of the far right that gets a far easier time and
regularly enters corporate media ("bomb them"). I suspect the latter is quite
effective radicalisation material and helps advance the idea that entire
countries hate a religion and that this is a war that is an existential threat
to people of that religion.

~~~
19eightyfour
I've read back over this and some of your other comments in other threads. You
have some well thought out opinions, but I'm just of a different mindset.

You're probably too clever for me to be able to argue with. But that doesn't
matter to me. Because it doesn't really matter what either of us believe, it
only matters what we do. And when I look at the world, I don't see it is the
people who win the arguments who win. It is the people who can sway others
with emotion, the countries that can better tell their own story, the
civilizations that can build something that other people want and the
militaries that can deploy technologies that dominate that win. And above all,
I'm someone who loves humanity. For what it is. So it doesn't matter to me
even if your arguments are right. Because I'm more concerned about what's
necessary. I have strong opinions, born of my own experience, based on logic
and emotion.

Maybe I have been duped by the MSM, the AI of tech corporations and swindled
on a hopeless dream of being a "somebody" / a tech founder / a snowflake
whatever, in a consumerist society that needs to worship individualism and the
purchase of status, or relief from fear, to drive the economy. I've certainly
been duped by my friends and enemies, so, surely, the government, big
corporations and the media, with their infinitely better resources, can
probably dupe me too.

But I'm fine with that. Because all that really matters to me is how I live my
life. I figure most people are living in a delusion anyway. Of one form or
another. SO the question is not "do I have the truth?" the question, for me,
is "Is my perspective useful?" Does it work for me? Does it help me achieve my
goals? Whatever they might be.

And I think I'm good at that, or at least I try to be.

But on the topics you broach I'll give you my clear opinion: our societies,
that have something to offer ( freedom, justice, prosperity, equality, harmony
( maybe democracy if you like that sort of thing ) ), are better than the
societies that don't have such things to offer. As far as I'm concerned, any
violence from people emanating from such places against our own is wrong.
Prima facie wrong. Mainly, I think, because, if they were to win, they would
offer nothing. So we must win, because we can offer something. So all our
wars, against them, are justified to me. I see it as their problem. If their
societies didn't suck, if they had devleoped themselves, protected themselves
from manipulation and outside influence, then they'd be in a better place. But
instead, they didn't keep their houses in order, and they became these
breeding grounds for bad things, bad ideas. And I see no problem with wiping
them out. If we have to. Just like the human body will kill its own cells if
it diseased, I believe we should not hesitate to cut off those parts of our
human civilization that are toxic. An extreme view to utter, but not to
practice. I'm not saying that makes it okay. I'm saying it's okay, because
that's what we say is okay. We have to protect what's good. What's good is
certainly not what's perfect. But we have to get down in the dirt, and do bad
things, to protect the good.

Maybe you say that's extreme, and you pretend I'm bad, and I don't expect you
or many others to agree with me. I got that you would see it differently. But
I would just see that as the comforting delusions people adopt to tell
themselves they're good and righteous.

I want you to imagine if you have a family, and you are on a camping trip in
the forest, far from any outside help. And a group of bandits tries to attack
your camp. What kind of family person are you, who would refuse to do anything
necessary to protect the good that was their family? I say, that you'd be in
the wrong, if you refused to do anything "wrong" to protect your family.

So that's how I see humanity. Essentially good. Worth protecting. But
protecting it, and developing our civilization, is not going to be pretty.
Look at China. So much achieved. But so much horror and bloodshed to get
there. To me that's all there is. The development of the human civilization
and the forward march to a better future. There will be blood. But I believe
it's worth it. Other people don't. That's fine. To me, their "noble mindsets"
are the fruits of the peacetime they now enjoy because of the thousands of
years of bloodshed that have brought our civilization to where we can enjoy
peace.

TL;DR - I enjoy peace and love as much as the next human. I just think it's
fine to do anything we need to protect that and keep moving forward as a
species. Yes, it's a war mindset. Yes, the "terrorism is a threat" narrative
gets a lot of mileage. But who cares? Nothing is guaranteed in this world. As
far as I am concerned, humanity is always at war. If it's not terrorism, it's
disease, it's planetary annihiliation. Until we are a multiplanetary species,
who can upload our brains into new bodies whenever we like, until we've cured
death, we're always going to be at war. So we're on that road. We can't take
any chances. We ought not to waste any time. See the threats. Stamp them out.
Protect what's good. Excise the diseased parts. Nothing else matters. We do
not have the luxury of fanciful meditations, except from the security of an
armchair, a secure perch provided by the blood of people who fought and died
to bring you to the brief respite from endless horror we currently enjoy.
Humanity has a long way to go, and it's not going to be pretty, but I believe
we'll get there. You just have to be prepared to get dirty along the way. Get
down in the dirt, and muck it out. To save and protect what's good.

You probably care more for argument and logic and facts and finely stated
opinions than all of this emotive, rhetoric. But to me, it's not that. It's
very plainly how I see things. So, thanks for giving me this chance to express
it here. I feel internet conversations are useless, but they give me a chance
to know my own thoughts better.

------
thinkingemote
In the counter speech section, where the answer is to promote messages from
credible people they say that terrorists live a "Hate filled violent life."

Is this accurate or just another easy way of saying "these people are not
human they are just evil"

Is it both more accurate and more frightening to allow yourself to think that
terrorists live a generally peaceful and happy life within a family? Aren't
the worse monsters the ones who live amongst us and not the ugly other?

I suspect it is and that makes the solution harder on some ways but also
easier in others. If your brother can fall into thinking one way then he can
change his thinking and move into another way.

~~~
csydas
Maybe I'm not understanding your objection clearly, but what they wrote was
"...prevent people from pursuing a hate-filled, violent life or convincing
them to abandon such a life"

I think this is pretty careful sentence structure on their part to suggest
that it's normal people who enter into such a life, not that they are at their
core hate filled and violent. The section seems to agree with what you're
suggestion, and maybe it's just awkwardly worded, but as a native speaker, to
me it sounds like the usual deescalation tactic of affirming the goodness in
people. "Life" may be causing some misunderstanding or changing the scope
slightly, but it still fits.

------
jannes

        [...] we have begun work on systems to enable us to take action against
        terrorist accounts across all our platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram.
        Given the limited data some of our apps collect as part of their service,
        the ability to share data across the whole family is indispensable to our
        efforts to keep all our platforms safe.
    

Looks like they are indeed linking WhatsApp and Facebook accounts internally.
Weren't they fined for failing to disclose this pre-acquisition a couple weeks
ago?

~~~
hiq
They were fined for failing to disclose that they could do this automatically
and easily, not for doing it per se.

[https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-
eur...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-europe-over-
misleading-whatsapp-filing/)

------
nils-m-holm
Communicate.

Really, "terrorists" usually have the same goals as "we" do: peace, respect,
safety, prosperity. If we stopped pretending that "we" are right and "they"
are wrong, the problem might go away in the long run.

Note that I do not approve of the terrorist approach to communication but,
maybe, they just have no other way of making themselves heard, so if we
listened, they might start talking instead of bombing.

~~~
rimliu
Maybe you are right if you talk about "terrorists"—in quotes. However, if you
talk about terrorists, or do be precises—jihadists, you are very far off base.
Pretending that "they" and "we" share the same worldview won't cause the
problem go away for sure. Because the problem is that they do think their way
is _the right way_ to live and what's worse—that all others, even those, who
do not subscribe to their worldview still have to follow that way.

~~~
nils-m-holm
That's exactly what they may think about us. In fact I can read your statement
from "their" point of view and it would still make sense.

Without communication we'll never find common ground. Without common ground,
the problem will not go away.

------
panic
Here's a scenario: imagine China agrees to un-ban Facebook as long as they can
provide their own "terrorist photos" and "terrorist text" as input to this
software, giving them the power to censor Facebook worldwide. The fact that
this capability even exists is a bit concerning!

~~~
19eightyfour
Don't panic. This is unlikely. IF FB goes in China, yes it will partner with
censors. But why would FB permit flagrant abuse of its anti-terror policies
for censorship? Doesn't make sense. It already has other mechanisms to censor.
Anyway, China takes terrorism as seriously as the US and has the same things
to lose. China would likely not misues "terrorism" to censor. Unlike the West,
China doesn't have to pretend something is "terrorism" to censor it. It's
bolder on suppressing ideas it doesn't like across the board to design harmony
in its society. Maybe its bolder stance is why it doesn't have such issues
with terrorism as the US, despite being active in parts of the world that have
large disadvantage Islamic populations and having its own large disadvantaged
Islamic population in the NW.

------
lambdadmitry
This is honestly terrifying. As a citizen of a state that increasingly tends
to call "terrorism" any non-passive dissent I can't help but substitute the
word "dissent" for the "terrorism" in the article. "If we previously removed a
propaganda video from the doubters of The Great Leader, we can work to prevent
other accounts from uploading the same video to our site" and such.

Or, to put it into terms closer to the demographic majority of HN, "we have
also recently started to experiment with using AI to understand text that
might be undermining the authority of the Oval office".

Given that Facebook collects data from a ton of sources besides facebook.com
(even your CC data), it's literally a Big Brother scenario. Big "AI-powered"
Brother without _any_ oversight or responsibility.

------
19eightyfour
One criticism I have of this policy doc is this quote from the "Counterspeech"
section.

> But counterspeech is only effective if it comes from credible speakers.

No it isn't. It's also effective if the background noise of conversation in
your life is countering the "terrorism supporting narratives". Credible people
are important. But not the only pillar. If you have a lot of voices countering
the terrorists' narratives then you can get somewhere too.

Overall tho I'm a fan of this post as a step in the right direction, not just
for FB realizing it can do something to counter t, but also awakening to its
wider role in the world.

------
al_chemist
Harder question: Why should Facebook counter terrorism? Easy answer: Because
terrorist may use it.

Yes, but terrorists may use roads, buses, local grocery shops, cinemas. Should
all of those places counter terrorism?

~~~
curiousgal
I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less
they are out there killing people.

~~~
JohnStrangeII
Killing people does not take much time, terrorists are not out there killing
people 24/7\. It's more like once in a lifetime until they get shot by police.

------
krapp
We don't need to make "terrorism" a special case. The number of deaths due to
terrorist activity in the West amounts to a rounding error on the roster of
ways people die. We already have the tools and means to deal with it, we just
don't seem to be using them. We do, however, need to counter the effort of
governments to use terrorism as a pretense for _their_ attacks on civil
liberties.

The response to terrorism seems to demand ever increasing surveillance,
collaboration between tech companies and intelligence agencies to undermine
user privacy, militarizing of police forces, limiting free speech and
political expression, control of the media (including social media),
extrajudicial detainment and murder on a global scale.

And yet, every time there is an attack, it seems there's a clear and obvious
trail of evidence leading to the conspirators that was ignored, which could
have been followed up on by existing methods.

Is it the case that terrorists are _just that good_ or that governments are
only pretending to fight them in order to justify authoritarian power grabs?

------
fghafoor
Most people seem to be mentioning why terrorists won't be using facebook and
instead some more secure etc.

That's probably not the issue FB is countering. They are/should be focussed on
the content that's spreading radicalization/extremism. Lots of pages do that
and since so many people have access someone is bound to be attracted!

Just recently a young female doctor from Pakistan was in news becausr she
joined a terrorists group because she liked there posts/propaganda videos on
FB. Thankfully she was caught during a operation!

Thag content really needs to be controlled! It's making small groups being a
able to raise money/attract followers quite easily with just a private fb
group or page!!

------
wuschel
I am always wondering if "terrorists" really use means of communication that
are easy to compromise.

~~~
ajdlinux
Thankfully, for the rest of us, most terrorists have reasonably poor OPSEC.

------
killjoywashere
Why would they say this? Why not just turn over those IP addresses to the FBI
or NSA, who could then prosecute the targets with prejudice?

Why would they ban these people? Why not shadow ban them, shadow ban the
entire thread, and then turn over those IP addresses to the FBI or NSA, who
could then prosecute the targets with prejudice?

Why does FB think they can solve the world's problems by shuffling electrons
around the internet? Some problems have to be solved in meatspace.

Because dead people can't sell clicks, but stories about dead people sell a
lot of clicks. So let them die, just keep the evidence out of Zuck's money-
making machine.

------
im3w1l
Terrorism is better than a police state. That said, hopefully "extreme
vetting" will make the choice unnecessary.

~~~
19eightyfour
How can you even promote that? Even taken at face value...on the one hand, you
have illegal violence carried out by non-state actors. On the other hand legal
violence carried out by the state. Unless I totally misunderstood you, you are
saying being subject to illegal violence carried out by non-state actors is
better than police violence? No. Way. Societies worldwide would also disagree
with you. The State has a monopoly on violence. And this form of social
organization is the majority in the world today, not your "terrorism is
better" alternative. Deal with it.

~~~
cbanek
I don't know if the comment was comparing state sanctioned violence vs non-
state sanctioned violence, but a quote comes to mind:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Basically, if we wanted to eliminate terrorism, we would have severely curtail
freedom. And there aren't nearly as many terrorists as people think. More
people die from car crashes, drug overdoses, etc. But changes in the law, the
way police and law enforcement do things, could cause a loss of the liberties
and freedoms we currently enjoy.

~~~
19eightyfour
Oh, so you're saying the speaker was saying

" some terrorism as opposed to the curtailing of freedoms that would come from
eliminating" [1]

is preferable ?

I completely took it to mean: "I would prefer to live in the Islamic State,
than in the USA with mass surveillance."

Okay, well I'm undecided as to whether [1] would be preferable or not in the
way it's phrased. What I have thought about tho is:

\- Yes we could eliminate terrorism, and it would take a lot of extreme
measures ( that the West would be unlikely to get away with )

\- But why should we eliminate terrorism, since from a purely political
standpoint, it is quite useful. From any sufficiently emotive or divisive
issue political motivation and utility can be extracted. For instance, the
fear of terrorism helps the State advance legislation that it probably would
not be talking about if we did not have terrorism. So the funny paradox I see
is that, at this stage of human development, our States can actually benefit
from using the spectre of terrorism to develop and advance themselves. Please
take this in no way to mean justifying terrorism in any way...just to say
that, IMHO, real politik dictates that terrorism has political benefits for
the very State it is supposed to politically disadvantage.

~~~
cbanek
The obvious point is that terrorism isn't something that can be eliminated.
It's just like violence. The only difference between terrorism and violence is
honestly a political message.

If you want to say that the state can get away with things it couldn't before
because of a war on something it can't win, I'm with you. The "war on drugs"
is about as useful as waiting for Godot. But make no mistake, nobody thinks
its about drugs.

But overall, you seem to be taking these arguments to extremes that weren't
really needed, and I'm not sure why. Nobody said anything about living in the
Islamic State, and anyone who would take it that way I think has some serious
thinking to do about their perspective.

------
idkfa
It's not really that hard: there's no way terrorists can counter terrorism

------
lanevorockz
People are way off, terrorism is not caused or even depend on social media.
The major point behind are the actual texts depicting a time of war when they
were originated.

This time is now past and religious preaching it should make it clear that the
values from a thousand years ago don't have place on modern society.

Many Islamic preachers recognize and openly criticize, they are just a
minority usually refered as the uncle toms.

