RadicalizationAssessing U.K. government’s 10-year effort to tackle online extremism

Following increased scrutiny of Prevent, the U.K. government’s counter-extremism strategy, Quilliam, a London-based counter-extremism think tank, released a White Paper which assesses the successes and failures of Prevent in its 10-year history, and makes recommendations for its improvement to deal with the current nature of the threat.

Quilliam says that the paper responds to the report from the Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee and adds to the debate surrounding the 2014 Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill.

Currently, the two biggest challenges for U.K. counterterrorism are the radicalization and recruitment of individuals by the jihadist organization Islamic State (IS) and the use of the Internet by IS and other extremist organizations to spread unwanted and potentially dangerous ideologies and narratives internationally.

In particular, the White Paper analyzes existing policy on tackling online extremism and makes a series of recommendations to improve the effectiveness of this policy. Quilliam’s findings and recommendations include:

• Counter-extremism and counterterrorism should be separated at a strategic and delivery level. The U.K. government must consider the central co-ordination of Prevent, separate from the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, with Select Committee oversight, and an in-house due diligence unit and training body.
• The government must recognize that initial processes of radicalization predominantly occur offline. While the Internet is an important secondary socializer and potential catalyst for radicalization, offline processes must be better addressed in preventative measures, particularly within schools, universities, and prisons. Prevent must develop an online sphere of operations, and its online counter-extremism work must learn from the successes and failures of offline counter-extremism, and be coordinated accordingly.
• The government must accept that negative measures, including censorship and filtering initiatives alone, are ineffective in tackling online extremism, They tackle the symptoms rather than the causes of radicalization. Motivated extremists and terrorist affiliates can evade such measures easily through the dark net and virtual private networks. Blocked materials consistently reappear online and there is no effective way for Internet Service Providers or social media companies to filter extremist content.
• The continuation of communication and working channels between government, social media companies, and ISPs is key to continuing the current efforts being made to remove content which is deemed illegal under UK terrorist legislation and more broad regulations against Hate Speech and Incitement to Violence.
• Counter-speech and positive measures are critical in challenging the sources of extremism and terrorism-related material online. Community engagement and civil society action are essential components of such positive measures and, as such, counter-speech initiatives should be civil society-led and, only they if fulfill the necessary criteria, should be supported by government through Prevent.

Quilliam’s political liaison officer, Jonathan Russell, said: “Recognizing that censorship alone is ineffective and counter-productive in efforts to counter online extremism, the government should consider building an online dimension into Prevent. This would enable positive counter-speech to come from civil society to challenge the ideologies and narratives that underpin extremism of all kinds.”

— Read more in Erin Marie Saltman and Jonathan Russell, The Role of Prevent in Countering Online Extremism (Quilliam, 2 December 2014)