Technology: Online Radicalization

A Journalists Point Of View On Extremism

by Tiffany Palapo

At 2:00pm on March 1st, my group mates and I got on a zoom meeting with Cloee Cooper. Cloee Cooper is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Association, a news website.

During our interview, we talked about the experiences Cloee’s experiences with interviewing extremists and what changes she hopes to make when publishing articles. She shared her thought’s about what the internet is doing both good and bad. We also talked to her about the future of radicalization, and she thinks that it will always exist, but her hopes are that with more publicity on the issue, awareness can be spread and it will simmer down. When we asked more questions about far-right activists though, she said she was growing uncomfortable with the constant talking about the topic so we ended our interview soon after.

by Holly Baumann

On Wednesday at 2:00 PM, on March 1st, we interview Cloee Cooper. Cloee is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, which is a social justice research and strategy center. She has been working for PRA for about 5 years, and longer in journalism as a whole. Although our interview with her was somewhat last minute, we were able to touch on so many issues in our time with her.

In our interview, we talked a bit about what we think the next 10 years will be like, in terms of online radicalization and extremism. She told us that she thinks there will be a lot more violence, but she hopes that it will eventually calm down. She mentioned a couple of times the events of 2020 and how police brutality came into the spotlight. Once something is revealed, people don’t just forget about it.

We’re really appreciative that we got to interview Cloee and are happy with the information we found out.

by Holly Baumann

On Tuesday, January 24th at 2:00, me and my group had a called with Denise Zaraya and Andrew King who work at IAS (Integral Ad Science). IAS is a company that analyses advertising on the internet, and checks to see if its appropriate and safe.

In our interview with them, they taught us a bit of how the system works, and why it is useful. We talked a bit about current events, like how Elon Musk just bought twitter, and how he discovered how many bots there were. To lessen the amount of these bots, he introduced a subscription plan. Besides that, we talked about how on social media platforms, there is a massive amount of bots and false advertisements, thats purpose is to cause a stir to get more engagement. When we asked them why these bots are even there, they responded by saying that the main reason is to make money.

Andrew and Denise gave us a lot of information about how they censor certain ads online, and why it is helpful.

by Holly Baumann

On Friday, January 20th, me and my group had a call with Patrick Riccards, the CEO of the non-profit organisation Life After Hate. Life After Hates mission is to help former extremists find their humanity again, and regain compassion. Patrick is the first person to be CEO of LAH, without being a former extremist, so it was interesting to get his close up perspective.

We asked Patrick a variety of questions, like how he gets through to people who are former extremist, what role social media plays, and what made him want to be apart of LAH, but his answer to one of them stuck out to me. When we asked him if he feels bad for any of these former extremist who are struggling, he bluntly says “no”. He goes on to explain that its hard to feel bad for them when they have done horrific things, and they need to take accountability for that, which is one of the hardest things to do when trying to turn over a new leaf.

Patrick gave us a better understanding on different parts of hate groups, and it was cool to get his perspective.

by Holly Baumann

On Friday, January 13th at 12:30, me and my group met with Kalil in his office to interview him. Kalil is LREIs Director of Equity and Community, and his jobs is to make sure LREI stays diverse, and he uses his expert knowledge around diversity and community to make sure everyone feel comfortable in the schools environment. In our interview with him, we decided to focus on how online radicalization affects minorities, who they try to recruit (and why), and how lots of time, people in these hate groups (like the proud boys) are parading their harmful view and ideals in plain sight, and acting upon violent endeavors.

by Tiffany Palapo

At 9:00 am on the 25th, my group and I -minus Holly, she was sick- met with Jason Schultz in person. Jason works at NYU as a professor of clinical law. His class is all about the laws against hate speech online so he knew a lot about the lawful side of radicalization online.

One of the important things I learned from Jason was about why extremist/radicalization groups got away with so much online. A main reason is because of The First Amendment, it states that “Congress make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise.” Basically, it protects freedom of speech. The reason why online radical groups get away with so many things they say/post are because of the blurred lines between freedom of speech and indication of taking (violent) action. A perfect example of this is if somebody was bullying a person, a blurred difference would be “Go beat up —-, their no good,” vs. “—- lives at this address, goes to school at 8:15 in the morning and leaves at 3:15.” The first example could easily be sued, however, the second example could not because it is not outright saying ‘go be violent’ to said person, their just stating something on the internet.

There are many other important and helpful things that I have learned from Jason. He was a very helpful source and will definitely play a big role in our project.

by Tiffany Palapo

On the 24th, at 2:00 my group and I interviewed Denise Zaraya and Andrew King of Integral Ad Science. Denise was one of the essential people to the start of the organization. Andrew is one of the main people who build on the monitoring technology, updating it whenever a new problem comes up. We met with them on zoom.

I learned from them that having technology to monitor hate speech online would benefit not only consumers but also companies. With monitors available, social media companies don’t need to resort to tactics that would cause people to loose. For example, went Elon Musk recently obtained Twitter, to lessen the spread of bots, he suggested introducing subscriptions to twitter. While this plan would have worked immensely to lessen the amount of bots, it would have deterred many people who don’t have the finances or resources. They also spoke about the importance of monitors for hate speech because of how in recent times, everything has been online based. Most of the population uses social media as a form entertainment and communication, leaving lots of people vulnerable to be exposed towards violence/hate speech.

Denise and Andrew talked about various different things that will benefit my project with the online/advertising portion. They’re perspective has given me ideas of what to research for the advertising and more general online based hate.

by Sookie Lee

Name: Sookie Lee Social Justice Group: Cults and Online Radicalization Date of Fieldwork: January 25th, 2023 Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s): Patrick Riccards, CEO of Life After Hate Type of Fieldwork: Interview What I did do and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or…

by Sookie Lee

Name: Sookie Lee Social Justice Group: Cults and Online Radicalization Date of Fieldwork: January 13th, 2023 Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s): Kalil Oldham, LREI Director of Equity and Communication Type of Fieldwork: Interview What I did, and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and…

by Tiffany Palapo

On Friday the 13th, at 12:30, my group and I had an in-person interview with Kalil Oldham in his office. During our interview with Kalil, my group and I focused on the overall effect of radicalization, the groups that are the most targeted, why they are targeted the most, and myths. Kalil’s position as director of equity and community means that he has gone through studies about topics such as radicalization and extremism. He knows about the mental and conspiracy aspects.

During the interview, my group and I asked Kalil of what group of people are the most recruited/affected by online radicalization and why they are so. He responded that young/teen white males are the most affected. This is so because of the multiple platforms that they are on online, games, and social media, making them easily accessible as a vulnerable person. These are males who don’t feel they belong, in any group or clique, males who feel that nobody is truly listening to them. Then radicalization groups take advantage of this, acting as a source of comfort and understanding, bonding with them through gaming sessions or memes. Kalil also mentioned the irony of this, young white males being the most affected group, because they are the majority, the stereotypical ‘fits in everywhere’ group.

The interview with Kalil helped build on the things we saw online, and gave them more perspective and details. He also recommended us a video to watch and organizations to contact. He also made me and my group aware of the psychological side of all of this, giving us another area of our topic to look into, to be able to have a deeper knowledge for our project.

by Tiffany Palapo

At 12:30 on January 20th, my group mates and I got on a google meeting with Patrick Riccards in Kalil’s office. Patrick is the CEO of an organization called ‘Life After Hate’. LAH is a nonprofit organization that focuses on helping former extremists get rid of their hate and help them to lead a more compassionate life.

Patrick is the first CEO of LAH to not have been a former extremist, so getting his perspective on things was insightful. We spoke to him about a range of things, from how he became interested in his field of work to how social media plays a role in radicalization. One of the many things I learned from him is why it can be challenging for extremists/supremacists to go through the process of healing/becoming a new person. First of all, they’d have to accept that they’re at fault not only to others but also to themselves, the process is really only beneficial if one truly believes that they were horrible and they were not doing the right things. Second, it’s the fear of going back to a normal life, one that is not decided by someone other than themself. Recruited supremacists are essentially in a cult, they’re whole life is dictated by their ‘leader’, their words are manipulated, their actions monitored and their thoughts processed; so going back to a life that is led only by themselves can apparently become really frightening.

I’ve learned many other things from Patrick, things that will definitely benefit me and my group’s project. From talking with Patrick, we’ve also been giving ideas of who to talk to and what to visit, allowing us more opportunities to learn and educate ourselves.