Reader's Digest – 30 September 2022

Reader's Digest – 30 September 2022

Our end-of-month review of Tech Against Terrorism's work, providing updates on the Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), Research, and Policy Advisory and Response (PAR) teams.

Tech Against Terrorism Updates

• Tech Against Terrorism is pleased to announce that the Government of Canada has awarded Tech Against Terrorism up to $1.9 million of funding over three years for Phase 2 of the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP). You can find the Public Safety Canada announcement here.
   
• This month, we hosted the "West Africa Workshop: Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Online" in Accra with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) and Ghana Cyber Security Agency (CSA). Within this workshop, we took a closer look at the terrorist and violent extremist threat landscape in the West Africa region and how this threat manifests online. Thank you to all who attended! If you were unable to attend and would like access to a recording of the panels, please email us at contact@techagainstterrorism.org.
  
  Agenda
  • The State of Play - Expert Researchers and Government Threat Assessments
  • Models for collaboration between the Private Sector, Civil Society, and Government
  • Resiliency and PVE/CVE initiatives: Regional Programs
  • Breakout Sessions
    • Tech: Tech Company Training Session
    • NGOs: Counter Speech Training
    • Law Enforcement and Cyber Security Training

• Thank you to all who joined our webinar with the GIFCT on “Mental Health Tooling and Support for Researchers and Content Moderators.” If you would like to access the recording but were unable to join, please email us at contact@techagainstterrorism.org.

Agenda

• Miron Lakomy, Professor of Political Science, University of Silesia
• Olivier Cauberghs, Researcher and Trainer, Textgain
• Maura Conway, Moriarty Professor of Government and International Studies, Dublin City University
• Moderators: Grace Rollison, Policy Analyst, Tech Against Terrorism
  Nagham El Karhili, Program Associate, GIFCT

Research Team Update

• The Tech Against Terrorism podcast returns on 13 October!  Subscribe here to be alerted as episodes are released.
  • We’re bringing our listeners biweekly (every other week) episodes tackling the evolving use the internet by terrorists and violent extremists and what’s being done to disrupt this threat.
  • The show is hosted by our Research Manager, Anne Craanen, who speaks to academics, counterterrorism practitioners, journalists, policymakers, tech sector representatives, human rights advocates, as well as the TAT team for their insights on tackling this complex challenge.
  • The upcoming themes we’ll be exploring range from terrorist use of the dark web to mental health and researcher safety, to online regulation in Russia. Find out more here and stay tuned for a trailer dropping next week…
  • In the meantime, you can find all Tech Against Terrorism podcast episodes on our podcast website or our Knowledge Sharing Platform.
     
• This month, our Research Manager Anne Craanen delivered a keynote address at our West Africa Workshop: Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Online. She outlined Tech Against Terrorism’s work in tackling terrorist content produced by violent Islamist groups in the region.
   
• We announced that Tech Against Terrorism has joined the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) as a member. We look forward to partnering with world-leading counter-extremism researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to support tech companies tackle the exploitation of gaming by terrorists and violent extremists.

Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Team Update

• This month, OSINT Manager Arthur Bradley presented at the Washington Institute Working Group Roundtable with Alex Newhouse, where he spoke about the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform and how we action terrorist content online. They discussed the findings from our recent article "A Case Study in Neo-Fascist Accelerationist Coalition Building Online" written in collaboration with Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, US. The discussion concluded with insights on other digital ecosystems related to militant accelerationism that we are actively monitoring.
   
• At our West Africa Workshop: Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Online conference, our OSINT Analyst Charley Gleeson spoke on the opening "State of Play" panel. On this panel, they gave an overview of how terrorists use the internet, an analysis of the regional threat landscape in West Africa, and some information on what we are doing to disrupt terrorist exploitation of tech platforms.
   
• This month, we added James Mason to the Inclusion Policy of the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform, based on his designation as a terrorist entity by Canada. You can read our full statement on the inclusion of James Mason here. So far, we have submitted 70 URLs, and sent 69 alerts to 5 platforms.

Policy Advisory and Response (PAR) Team Update

• On 21 September, Tech Against Terrorism hosted a panel event in partnership with Meta alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York on end-to-end encryption (E2EE). The event saw an expert panel discuss the current threat landscape, existing solutions for law enforcement and tech companies to countering terrorist use E2EE, and key considerations regarding future regulation of E2EE services. This event formed part of our roundtable series on E2EE, following the publication of our landmark report: "Terrorist use of E2EE: State of Play, Misconceptions, and Mitigation Strategies."
   
• On 22 September, Policy Manager Maygane Janin and Policy Analyst Isabelle Arnson represented Tech Against Terrorism at TrustCon in Palo Alto, California. They delivered a presentation on embedding transparency and accountability into online counterterrorism efforts, outlining Tech Against Terrorism’s experience in supporting the global tech sector with our transparency and accountability framework and how this can be used by platforms of different sizes. You can access the TrustCon programme in full here.
   
• This month, we have also started working on the third edition of the Online Regulation Series. The ORS 3.0 will continue to bring value to the discussion around online regulation and the implications for tech companies, providing regulatory analysis and practical recommendations, as well as discussing legal responses to terrorist use of the internet. This year, we will expand our analysis to new countries and provide updates on legislation included in the first and second editions of the Online Regulation Series. Watch this space!

For any questions, please get in touch via:
contact@techagainstterrorism.org