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Hard Questions: How We Counter Terrorism

32 points by ajdlinux 9y ago

panic 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
wuschel 9y ago
I am always wondering if "terrorists" really use means of communication that are easy to compromise.
- amelius 9y ago
  I guess it depends if they can use it to influence lots of people.
- ajdlinux 9y ago
  Thankfully, for the rest of us, most terrorists have reasonably poor OPSEC.
im3w1l 9y ago
Terrorism is better than a police state. That said, hopefully "extreme vetting" will make the choice unnecessary.
- TokenDiversity 9y ago
  Not an American (I'm a भारतीय) but as "anti-India" as Trump may be, I actually like this platform of Trump's (extreme vetting that is). I wish to return to the time when flight check-in was much faster. If 9/11 hadn't happened, we'll have more concordes and economy would be at a different place today (I know this wasn't the only reason for their demise but surely it helped) I wish our country could do something similar but Pakistan doesn't send terrorists by plane :|
  - vikascoder 9y ago
    What does flight check-in times has to do with extreme vetting? US visas are already granted after extreme vetting and pre 9/11 ease of moving around is not coming back anytime soon. Concordes are not flying purely for safety and business reasons and not terrorism and sot com bubble and the 2008 market crash happened because of corporate greed which is what affects many more lives than fear and paranoia. Our country already extremely vets, tracks the movement and stay of Pakistani nationals inside our borders. I know of a few people who have married Pakistani nationals and stay in Mumbai. They undergo the most inhumane scrutiny. You want an ankle bracelet on you when you live in the US? Terrorist attacks in India have seldom been committed by visa travellers. It has either been disgruntled natives like Tiger memon colluding with corrupt Indian officials or poor security infrastructure which leads to ttacks over water. I am sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.
- 19eightyfour 9y ago
  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.
thinkingemote 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
avaer 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - rl3 9y ago
    >... the propagation of narratives that pretend to support illegal terrorist violence ... As opposed to legal terrorist violence?
    - 19eightyfour 9y ago
      The idea is to reinforce the fact that: - only the State has a monopoly on violence, so State violence is legal - terrorist violence is illegal Perhaps it would be clearer to say, the always-illegal terrorist violence...but that seems like too many words. I'm happy with it as it is.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      While the terms have expanded to also include non-state actors and actions by states outside of their sovereign jurisdiction, “Terrorism” and “Terrorist” were originally terms for, respectively state actions authorized by the highest level of government for the control of the citizenry, and the government actors shaping and executing that policy. And while those are perhaps not the terrorists your government wants you to be concerned about today, it remains a common form of terrorism (see, for a relatively clear current example, Duterte's fairly overt campaign of terror in the Philippines.)
nils-m-holm 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
  - averagewall 9y ago
    That's an extremely narrow minded viewpoint. You're sure conventional warfare is right and terrorism is wrong? Perhaps the majority of Americans (based on votes) believe their way is right and they have to impose it on others who are wrong.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    So, the US think their way is the right way, invade their country over it, and force anyone who doesn't subscribe to that view to follow it. Look how angry them doing that makes you, that's a fraction of what they feel.
- efdee 9y ago
19eightyfour 9y ago
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.
lanevorockz 9y ago
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.
idkfa 9y ago
It's not really that hard: there's no way terrorists can counter terrorism
al_chemist 9y ago
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 9y ago
  I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less they are out there killing people.
  - JohnStrangeII 9y ago
    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.
- curiousgal 9y ago
  I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less they are out there killing people.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Radicalization is a very real problem. It's hard to imagine a good reason Facebook should allow ISIS propaganda videos with beheadings and torture killings on their network. If someone was walking around a grocery store with posters of corpses and passing out literature that advocates violence, they sure as hell would and should get kicked out.
lambdadmitry 9y ago
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.
jannes 9y ago
[...] 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 9y ago
  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-europe-over-misleading-whatsapp-filing/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-eur...
unlmtd 9y ago
facebook is a terrorist organization
fghafoor 9y ago
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!!
krapp 9y ago
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?
killjoywashere 9y ago
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.

32 points by ajdlinux 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

wuschel 9y ago

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

amelius 9y ago
I guess it depends if they can use it to influence lots of people.
ajdlinux 9y ago
Thankfully, for the rest of us, most terrorists have reasonably poor OPSEC.

im3w1l 9y ago

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

TokenDiversity 9y ago
Not an American (I'm a भारतीय) but as "anti-India" as Trump may be, I actually like this platform of Trump's (extreme vetting that is). I wish to return to the time when flight check-in was much faster. If 9/11 hadn't happened, we'll have more concordes and economy would be at a different place today (I know this wasn't the only reason for their demise but surely it helped) I wish our country could do something similar but Pakistan doesn't send terrorists by plane :|
- vikascoder 9y ago
  What does flight check-in times has to do with extreme vetting? US visas are already granted after extreme vetting and pre 9/11 ease of moving around is not coming back anytime soon. Concordes are not flying purely for safety and business reasons and not terrorism and sot com bubble and the 2008 market crash happened because of corporate greed which is what affects many more lives than fear and paranoia. Our country already extremely vets, tracks the movement and stay of Pakistani nationals inside our borders. I know of a few people who have married Pakistani nationals and stay in Mumbai. They undergo the most inhumane scrutiny. You want an ankle bracelet on you when you live in the US? Terrorist attacks in India have seldom been committed by visa travellers. It has either been disgruntled natives like Tiger memon colluding with corrupt Indian officials or poor security infrastructure which leads to ttacks over water. I am sorry but you have no idea what you are talking about.
19eightyfour 9y ago
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.

thinkingemote 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.

avaer 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
- rl3 9y ago
  >... the propagation of narratives that pretend to support illegal terrorist violence ... As opposed to legal terrorist violence?
  - 19eightyfour 9y ago
    The idea is to reinforce the fact that: - only the State has a monopoly on violence, so State violence is legal - terrorist violence is illegal Perhaps it would be clearer to say, the always-illegal terrorist violence...but that seems like too many words. I'm happy with it as it is.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    While the terms have expanded to also include non-state actors and actions by states outside of their sovereign jurisdiction, “Terrorism” and “Terrorist” were originally terms for, respectively state actions authorized by the highest level of government for the control of the citizenry, and the government actors shaping and executing that policy. And while those are perhaps not the terrorists your government wants you to be concerned about today, it remains a common form of terrorism (see, for a relatively clear current example, Duterte's fairly overt campaign of terror in the Philippines.)

nils-m-holm 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- averagewall 9y ago
  That's an extremely narrow minded viewpoint. You're sure conventional warfare is right and terrorism is wrong? Perhaps the majority of Americans (based on votes) believe their way is right and they have to impose it on others who are wrong.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  So, the US think their way is the right way, invade their country over it, and force anyone who doesn't subscribe to that view to follow it. Look how angry them doing that makes you, that's a fraction of what they feel.
efdee 9y ago

19eightyfour 9y ago

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.

lanevorockz 9y ago

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.

idkfa 9y ago

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

al_chemist 9y ago

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 9y ago
I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less they are out there killing people.
- JohnStrangeII 9y ago
  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.
curiousgal 9y ago
I'd argue that we should let them use Facebook, the more one uses it the less they are out there killing people.
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Radicalization is a very real problem. It's hard to imagine a good reason Facebook should allow ISIS propaganda videos with beheadings and torture killings on their network. If someone was walking around a grocery store with posters of corpses and passing out literature that advocates violence, they sure as hell would and should get kicked out.

lambdadmitry 9y ago

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.

jannes 9y ago

[...] 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 9y ago
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-europe-over-misleading-whatsapp-filing/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/18/facebook-fined-122m-in-eur...

unlmtd 9y ago

facebook is a terrorist organization

fghafoor 9y ago

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!!

krapp 9y ago

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?

killjoywashere 9y ago

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.