[silk] Trolling as counter-terrorism

[Udhay Shankar N]

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Udhay

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/counterterrorism-trolls/all/

Newest U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling

    By Spencer Ackerman
    July 18, 2012 |

In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of
tactics against terrorists. Itbs invaded countries where they operated
(and ones where they didnbt). Itbs tried to win the backing of foreign
populations in which the terrorists hide. And itbs sent commandos and
deadly flying robots to kill them one by one.

One thing it hasnbt done, until now: troll them.

Within the State Department, a Silicon Valley veteran has quietly
launched an improbable new initiative to annoy, frustrate and humiliate
denizens of online extremist forums. Itbs so new that it hasnbt fully
taken shape: Even its architects concede it hasnbt fleshed out an actual
strategy yet, and accordingly canbt point to any results itbs yielded.
Its annual budget is a rounding error. The Pentagon will spend more in
Afghanistan in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence.

But it also represents, in the mind of its creator, a chance to
discourage impressionable youth from becoming terrorists b all in an
idiom they firmly understand. And if it actually works, it might stand a
chance of cutting off al-Qaidabs ability to replenish its ranks at a
time when it looks to be reeling.

The program, called Viral Peace, seeks to occupy the virtual space that
extremists fill, one thread or Twitter exchange at a time. Shahed
Amanullah, a senior technology adviser to the State Department and Viral
Peacebs creator, tells Danger Room he wants to use blogic, humor,
satire, [and] religious arguments, not just to confront [extremists],
but to undermine and demoralize them.b Think of it as strategic
trolling, in pursuit of geopolitical pwnage.


Outside the first Viral Peace/Generation Change seminar in Davao City,
Philippines, April 2012. Photo: Crishyl Ann/Facebook

Al-Qaidabs influence has waxed and waned during the past decade, but its
adherents, both current and potential, have gradually drifted online.
Forums like the password-protected Shumukh site host extremist bulletin
boards, where regulars debate the finer points of jihadist theory and
boast of grandiose plans to assassinate senior U.S. officials.

The denizens of those forums might be scrubs. But the online havens are,
increasingly, the town square for extremism, especially as drones and
commandos batter the terroristsb physical sanctuaries. Al-Qaidabs Yemen
branch publishes an English-language web magazine; its Somali branch
recently joined Twitter.

The U.S. has thought of several strategies for confronting the
not-so-new wave of online extremism, from apparent DDoS attacks on
extremist websites to infiltrating them using fake jihadi personas. The
White Housebs broad counterterrorism strategy, meanwhile, all but
ignores the internet.

Amanullah has a different view. You donbt necessarily need to deface the
forums if you can troll them to the point where their most malign
influences are neutralized.

In an interview at a Washington coffee shop near his State Department
office, Amanullah explains that online extremists have ban energy,
theybve got a vitality that frankly attracts some of these at-risk
people,b Amanullah says. bIt appeals to macho, it appeals to peoplebs
rebellious nature, it appeals to people who feel downtrodden.b Creating
a comparable passion on the other side is difficult. But itbs easier if
the average online would-be jihadi has his mystique challenged through
the trial by fire that is online ridicule.

To Jarret Brachman, itbs an idea with promise. Brachman is one of the
leading researchers of online jihadism. The people who post to the
forums are bare massive narcissists [who] need constant ego boosts,b
Brachman says b and, like other online blowhards, they tend to talk
outside their areas of presumed expertise. Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
the would-be Christmas bomber, used to bloviate on an Islamic forum
about blove and marriageb while simultaneously complaining about his
moribund love life.

And that makes Abdulmutallabbs virtual contemporaries vulnerable to
trolling b hopefully, before they can command attract an audience. The
jihadi braggarts bkeep the momentum, the anger and the virulence going
in forums, and they have a disproportionate impact, so if you can get
rid of them, itbll pay dividends,b Brachman says.

But not every extremist forum is alike. Will McCants, a former State
Department official now at the CNA think tank and another scholar of
online jihadism, argues Amanullahbs pupils canbt focus on the hardcore
extremist forums like Shumukh. bThe admins will immediately take downb
posts that challenge the jihadi narrative, McCants tells Danger Room.
bFor something like that to work, it would have to be in more mainstream
fora where extremists are trying to recruit,b like the conservative
muslm.net, where byou can engage and the admins wouldnbt necessarily
take you offline.b

But all that is several steps ahead of Viral Peace at the moment. Viral
Peace doesnbt have a strategy yet. And to hear Amanullah and his
colleagues tell it, the State Department wonbt be the ones who come up
with one. Itbs better, they argue, to let Muslims in various foreign
countries figure out which message boards to troll and how to properly
troll them. Americans wonbt know, say, the Tagalog-language Internet
better than Filipinos; and as outsiders, they wonbt have the credibility
necessary to actually make an impact. The best the State Department can
do is train good trolls b which Amanullah began to do this spring.

That means taking a big risk. If Viral Peace works as intended, with the
trainees taking control of the program, Amanullah and the State
Department will have little control over how the program actually trolls
the terrorists. And the first wave of meetings in Muslim countries shows
how far the program has to go.

Inside a Viral Peace meeting in the Philippines, April 2012. Photo
courtesy of Humera Khan.

It makes sense that someone like Amanullah would think about pwning
terrorists. A 44-year old proud Muslim and proud California geek, he was
the editor-in-chief of the web magazine Altmuslim; started an online
restaurant-rating service called Zabihah thatbs like a Halal version of
Yelp; and launched a business service called Halalfire to drive
advertising to the Muslim consumer market. Long before he arrived at the
State Department in October 2010, he was profiled in Newsweek, which
described the bookshelves at his El Cerrito home as blined with copies
of Wired magazine and Jack Kerouac novels.b

In April, Amanullah dispatched two young associates, Humera Khan of the
U.S.-based counter-radicalization think tank Muflehun and the playwright
and essayist Wajahat Ali, to set the idea into practice. They took a
quickie tour of Muslim nations to meet young local leaders who might be
interested in confronting extremism. It was a pilot program for Viral
Peace and a related program of Amanullahbs called Generation Change. The
idea was to connect notable people b rising stars in the arts, business
and culture fields, who had an online following b with one another and
to people who focused on counterterrorism.

bYou donbt need to teach this generation how to use social media. They
know how to use Twitter. They know how to use Facebook,b says Khan, who
participated in Viral Peace in her individual capacity. bThe whole
[Viral Peace] curriculum is about learning what strategy is.b

Except that the first wave of Viral Peace didnbt yield a strategy. In
Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia b Ali went to
Pakistan as well b the opening meetings brought together about 30 people
per country, selected by the State Department and Amanullahbs own social
networks, for sprawling brainstorming sessions. Some of them were just
about how Muslim communities are perceived in their own countries. And
some participants didnbt place counterterrorism at the top of their agendas.

bYes, there were issues of extremismb discussed, Khan says. bBut by and
large, the people felt that if you could deal with economics, education,
making sure the rights of the underprivileged were maintained, it would
take care of a lot of the other problems.b

That may be, but itbs also far afield from trolling the trolls.
Amanullah accepts that mission creep is a risk. But, he contends, if you
want to get the most effective people denouncing jihadis online, itbs a
risk worth accepting. And unlike the U.S. government, they stand the
better chance of getting lurkers to think of them as bactually a cool
group of people to be in,b as Amanullah puts it.

Whatbs more, Amanullah has basically no budget. Viral Peace, a global
program, has mere thousands of dollars in annual seed money so far; the
Obama administration is asking for about $85 billion for the Afghanistan
war next year. Participants are staying connected via Facebook, with
minimal U.S. government presence as a middleman; Amanullah wants to
expand to more countries soon. But itbs not clear where Viral Peace fits
in Obamabs broader counterterrorism strategy: White House officials
declined repeated requests to comment for this story. Amanullah sees it
as a supplement to existing counterterrorism efforts b not a replacement
for, say, drone strikes in Yemen b and he also concedes that his project
will take a long time before it starts to pay counterterrorism dividends.

But Amanullah doesnbt view that as an unconquerable obstacle. He thinks
of counterterrorism like a venture capitalist might.

bI come from Silicon Valley, from the start-up environment. I want to
prove you can do small, inexpensive, high-impact projects that donbt
just talk about the problem but solve the problem,b he says. bAnd solve
it the right way: not with the governmentbs heavy hand but by empowering
local people to do what they already know to do but donbt know how.b

-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

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