Transcripts For CSPAN Discussion On Combating Extremism Terrorism 20240713

Thanks for coming to our session , a Civil Society approach to preventing terrorism and targeted violence. I am a senior policy analyst with new Americas National security program. We are a think and action tanks civic life form that connects technology labs, solutions networks, media hub, and public forum. From homegrown american terrorism to United States drone wars abroad, and a corporation drones around the world to the profound changes in warfare brought by new technology and societal changes. Theuld like to introduce presentation on our new initiative before we jump into the panel portion. He was once a jihadist propagandist who ran revolutionary muslim, a new york citybased organization active in the 2000s connected to a number of terrorism cases. He connected al qaedas ideology and transformed it for america creating englishlanguage propaganda. 2011e radicalized in following his arrest in casablanca and incarceration in the u. S. After his presentation, i will invite the rest of our speakers to join us on stage and provide an introduction for each of them. We will discuss the changing threat landscape, future of terrorism practices, and the relationship between farright and jihadis him. We will save the last for audience q a. Good afternoon. Thank you for attending the event. Speciallike to express gratitude to new america for hosting this event, a civil size citing approach to preventing terrorism and extremist violence. Control alt delete hate is a magazine that will be issued in print and online. We will be passing around copies. It is an ecosystem approach to combating extremism that we have been building out since we got started. Of a meretive is more counter narrative tool. It is part of our holistic approach to the threat caused by mutually enforcing extremisms in the u. S. First a little on the projects background. Control alt delete hate is more than just a magazine. For over year mitch and i with the assistance of many supporters and the counter extremism project in their team of researchers have been working on advancing a program that can assist in combating the mounting threat posed by far rightwing extremism. My partnership with mitch was announced publicly on june 4, 2018 with an event right here at new america that documented the nefarious legacy i once built as a jihadi propagandist and mitch combated with the nypd as director of intelligence. We have learned a great deal. After researching, networking, publishing reports, designing programs we launched the online ecosystem we will discuss in more detail and in which control alt delete hate will be incorporated. This project came about as the result of much effort. Since our inception we have been putting together a network of former extremists, victims of extremism, activists, researchers, reporters, and others who believe in our model. Thinking about control alt delete hate started a week ago during the week of activity that made it apparent we needed to get moving fast. Theadded activity included tree of life and a white supremacist who tried to get into a barricaded africanamerican church and shot two elderly africanamericans at a supermarket in kentucky. Things have gotten a lot worse since then, but we have started at that time to select a team of farmers and victims of rightwing extremism that can serve alongside former jihadists to help us expand into the rightwing space going forward. At the core of our network, the theest the leader of largest neonazi network in america for two decades. Others. Nd and people like hope, an africanamerican woman whose father was murdered by white supremacist, and she is actually in contact with the individual who murdered him and provides support and empathy. These have been our interventionist. At the same time we have supported one another. Control alt delete hate is a byproduct of these efforts, the beginning of our effort in the rightwing space the rightwing space. I would like to talk about our approach to this problem. Weieve that farmers believe formers offer an unrivaled insight, particularly when teemed with an amazing collective of others from different spectrums of activity. Our efforts draw from the transdisciplinary model that we called the parallel network philosophy. It takes a systemic approach to extend activity so that what was typically standalone help lines with no outreach and little publicity and marketing, failed counter narrative campaigns that cannot reach the targeted audience and are essentially ineffective, because they are not connected to a Broader Network or movement. We thought of a alternative network or movement, one that first seeks to rival the insight and scope and worldview that network that ties extremists together. Only then we believe can you map that networks impact and measure the result of intervention oriented engagement. So ctrl alt delhate will serve as a cornerstone of these efforts. A bit more muggy history and how this template was established. The methodology we will use to disseminate it will be based on a Pilot Initiative we launched in june 2019, six months ago. When i was a jihadist recruiter and propagandist on behalf of al qaeda from 2003 until 2011, i collaborated with several premier jihadis right here in the u. S. To create the first englishlanguage jihadist magazines. I designed and wrote the lead article for the first issue. We called jihad recollections. After my new york citybased organization threatened the writers of south park for portraying the prophet mohammed, al qaeda launched their own iteration called inspire. Over the years, these magazines weaponized up again to an unseen weaponized propaganda in ways unseen beforehand. Mitch and i came up with the idea of taking that template back that i once initiated and using it for positive purposes. We designed a counter narrative product that outdid jihadists in Graphic Design called in arabic for people of consciousness. We included articles that deconstructed the jihadist ideology, included the testimony of formers like myself and offered a positive alternative worldview that we call a dialogue of civilizations model, equally applicable as we address perceived threats from the farright for the ethnostate they categorize as western civilization. A month before the launch we have a core hosting hub for ctrl alt delhate. We will embed it there. Onlaunched the first issue the fifth anniversary of the launch of isissocalled caliphate. Before the launch, we got the jihadist sympathizers to believe isis was about to launch a new englishlanguage magazine. That, coupled with the media rollout that generated publicity, forced extremist recruiters to respond as we invaded their echo chambers. It is essentially the only counter narrative product that has been utilized over encrypted platforms like telegram, where extremists, including the far right, are migrating as a result of efforts by mainstream social Media Companies like facebook, twitter, and youtube to remove extremist content. When we first launched it, the jihadist recruiters were angry. We kept popping up in their closed discussion groups because we had multiple moles in their network. This is a method mitch knows the importance of. That led to private discourse where we were screen shutting screen shouting conversations. Screen shoting conversations. We looked at the entrance of their leadership and inability to respond to arguments, spamming them with evidence against those they hold as leaders. At the same time, the magazine connects to interventions. It is not a standalone counter narrative product. For example, after reading and then coming to threaten me on twitter, i have established good relations and i am supporting a prominent individual that caused quite a bit of fanfare when he returned back to the west having joined isis, but remains free of criminal charges. Several similar interventions have risen as a result of our embeddedness in the englishlanguage network. Now, each article in each addition serves as a standalone piece on the website and is utilized for linking to engagement, sharing over social media, and putting into extremist conversation threads online. We also use it for prevention. In 2020, we will print hard copies of both and visit cities around the u. S. , speaking publicly with our core team to raise awareness and promote the Intervention Services. Now that we launched ctrl alt delhate, we can use the same method for domestic extremist collectives and discuss reciprocal radicalization. Ctrl alt delhate the magazine becomes not a standalone counter narrative product built on the if you build it they will come si hypothesis, nor something to insignificant in scope and application to have an impact. I will every on the holistic nature of the project and how it fits into the ecosystem. First in ctrl alt delhate, it is more than just the need name of a magazine. It is something we utilize as a clear paradigm in conducting personal and collective transformations. Based on keystrokes and playing off the popularized altright brand name, it operates off a unique framework for storytelling and transformation. The first stage, control, is to pause and process when confronted with extremist behavior ideology. As holocaust survivor Victor Frankel once stated, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that is the chance to respond and in that response lies our growth and our freedom. Our approach is dedicated to this. Control transitions to alt, to alter course, recognize that we need to look not just to the response to extremism, but alternative courses to address what are often legitimate grievances by nonviolent mechanisms. That turns to delete hate, for us all to recognize that in such a tumult was period, only all of tumultuous period, only all of society can address this threat. When applied, individuals can grasp deradicalization. The message of the magazine has an underlying method to appeal to the individual. Shift hate is the next component of our ecosystem. This is where oneonone engagements occur. The authors in the First Edition of the magazine and other support staff have facilitated. Shift stands for support and help for individuals and family touched by hate. Under that, we run a 24 7 helpline. We are unrivaled access to online extremist networks. Without any marketing or broadbased support from government or social Media Companies, we have conducted nearly 100 interventions, many with key hubs of extremist movements. For example, jeff and a young female former far right wing propagandist are here with us today and offer a case study of those that have benefited from the parallel network philosophy. We contacted those that disengage publicly from extremist movements and offered them support as well. We used shift to provide some of the only support for terroristrelated offenders returning to the states after their incarceration, and have used their case studies to conduct research and recommendations on how to address their concerns. The final component of the ecosystem is society against violent extremism and hate. If shift hate offers a saveit based approach, hate is the assetbased approach to build out the network that can transform into. Into a movement. Extremists dont simply offer a message. They offer a coherent rule worldview and counterculture, a community built on axioms. They develop ecochambers where opposition is drowned out by noise and confirmation bias. Extremist recruiters remain fluid, adjusting almost endless nimbly. Componentate influences utilizers and concentrates on formulating that parallel network, the network built on principles antithetical to hate that come together synergistically to offer a complete alternative to the extremist ecochamber. You can see on this slide the different intersectional components. First, this serves as the core hub of the ecosystem and generate safe space. It hosts all of our activity. Is hosted there. Taken together the system , permits extremist energies to be transitioned in a manner that creates opportunities for individuals and groups to experience the same meaning of significance and sense of belonging extremists offer. Second is research. The understanding today is evidence based initiatives with triple outcomes must precede implementation. We seek to learn by doing and then measure outcomes. Extremism is fluid. The lag associated with topdown social science often means the implementation of data driven interventions that are no longer appropriate in a climate that has already shifted. We first start the growth of the parallel network, and we measure engagements effectively, only once the network coalesces, and can be juxtaposed with contraction or expansion of the extremist network we seek to alter. The partnerships and consultancy is key. Theres currently too much competition and not enough cveaboration in the pbe space. Country of performers, victims of extremism, they all do their own things independently, but their engagement with the activity in the ecosystem allows their individual efforts to magnify. It becomes less about the individual and more about the movement. Think of the way charismatic preachers and propagandists operate under the extremist brand but still become individual icons, archetypal representatives that embody the mission of their causes and organizations. Ctrl alt delhate will help us build out effective alternatives and positive messaging. That will lead to broader marketing and raising Public Awareness about the shift hate Intervention Services and save hate will expand partnerships and influencers to provide a key means of networking to expand the movement. All of these components feed off of and into each other. From a social service perspective, they are designed to approach the issue of violent extremism as a Public Health phenomenon, and to demark each component of the brand so it can fulfill engagement and levels of prevention, harm reduction, intervention, Restorative Justice and rehab, the whole social service spectrum. Finally, then, going forward, now we have to advance and expand the parallel network. We have only been up and running this publicly light upon light ecosystem for six months. We will expand it through activities within each of the essential components. We will build out more research. We have heavily embedded and are in contact with Networks Like antifa, the in cell movement, proud boys, where ctrl alt delhate will be disseminated. We have contacted the hubs of those communities to do so. Our grassroots intervention efforts established sufficient researchzes needed for and we will pursue other initiatives as well. We will look to for more form more partnerships. We have been networking with peace Building Communities and have put together an Impressive Team that will organize the center for the study of trauma and radicalization. We collaborated with ideas beyond borders to translate the magazines into arabic and expand our influence into the majority world. We will take back the isis newsletter to utilize the same approach. We are looking to expand into australia, canada, and western europe as well. We will engage social Media Companies and request their support promoting the helpline and making sure users looking for extremist content are provided access and pathways to the light upon light messaging hub. Light upon light itself will increase its coverage of extremist related activity. We see a communication hub and hub, an online portal that can host Grassroots Research and journalism, advanced podcasts, online videos and other media that can arm the public with information, confront polarization with coverage and commentary, and offers a worldview that creates a collective nonpolarizing commentary. We have been advocating for a governmental focus that either i focuses specifically on the intervention space, a focus that might reduce public criticism of government involvement within, and provide an alternative to sole reliance on investigation and interdiction. This might add a tool to the counterterrorism toolbox. Mechanisms for Simple Society organizations like our own to conduct targeted interventions. We put together a proposal for next year that would ultimately lead to uniformity and internal recordkeeping, advance an online course that can train and empower key interventionists with information, instruction and skills in uniform standards and communication. We want to replicate essentially the field of Substance Abuse treatment, a field that has onlved to rely former addicts and training. As for save hate, we will utilize partnerships to increase the number of shape shifters. In 2020, a volatile and contentious year, we will look to present the magazines to 15 different cities in the u. S. Particularly, we will speak and enhance awareness, educate those on the front lines, impart a better understanding of risk indicators, and in turn, expand the save hate initiative. After our visit, we will retain contact with those communities so they will know we are there to support their own localized efforts. In conclusion, we are honored to be here today. As a society, we need to effectively, altogether, pause in that space between stimulus and response to alter course and recognize that each of us does, in fact, have a role to play and ability to address the consequences of polarization, hate, and extremism. As Albert Einstein once put it, no problem has ever been solved at the same level of consciousness that created it. A seek nothing less then paradigm shift in encountering violent extremism. I look forward to these discussions. Thank you very much for joining us. [applause] now i would like to call our panelists up to the stage. I will give some quick intros. Thank you, jesse. First, mitchell silber, the ceo of parallel networks, an organization he cofounded with jesse morton. He is also a founding principal at the guardian group, and intelligence and Security Consulting firm. Prior to his work at guardian group, mitch served as director of intelligence analysis at the nypd, where he was a counterterrorism adviser to the Deputy Commissioner and was responsible for building out and managing the analytic and cyber units. Next, i have brad galloway. He is a research and intervention specialist with the organization for prevention of violence, which is based in edmonton, alberta. Recently, he joined with parallel networks and light upon light to work with various networks to counter hate and violent extremism in the u. S. Next to jesse is jeff schoep. Until early 2019, he was one of the most prominent figures of the neonazi movement in the u. S. He was a national leader, commander of the National Socialist movement for over 25 years. It is now his mission to end the violence caused by extremism and radicalization. Today, jeff is an extremist consultant and works with parallel networks as a prevention and intervention specialist. Thank you all for being here today. Lets start with a focus of recent easingrks before we discuss policy in the United States. Starting with jesse, talk about the existence and similarities of farright, farleft, and jihadist tactics and propaganda, and how they feed off each other . For example, the new neonazi social networking platform called the base ties into al qaeda, because in arabic, al qaeda means the base. Also, farright groups have glorified bin laden as a symbol. Jesse it is very complicated as a discussion, and one that needs more research, but effectively we have three primary research. This is in the farright, and some degree, the farleft as well. You have this notion that the community is under threat or the white race is attacked. That is essentially the demarcating characteristic of violence extremism to preserve yourself from the violence. From the violence, violence is justified. Then, you have this real issue with the extremist mindset that is resistant to change and alteration and preserves traditionalism as a way to defend themselves from that and we see that with regard to this idea of the White Ethnostate or returning back to something akin to such. With regard to islam, it wants to return back to a caliphate. Essentially, the third demarcating characteristic is a return to a utopian past. Sometimes we overplay it because utopian past it is a utopian past that gives whichamework upon modernity or postmodernity can be expanded in line with their preconceptions and interests. What we say and my opinion, fascinating for someone like me, is that a lot of what is going on with the farright focuses on them replicate to a t the particular approach we utilized when jihadists became particularly when the london attacks were carried out. We realized homegrown violence extremism was of primary importance. The adjustments you referenced with organizations are key. If you look at the images, of the people pledging allegiance to albaghdadis successor right now, it looks almost identical. Seven or eight kids in the woods with guns pledging allegiance. You look at new groups and how they are fracturing. The base, five or six white men in the woods armed with ak47s. You watch the propaganda of video, one was just released of individuals shooting framed like they would in an isis video. You talk about vice identifying the recipe that is disseminated frequency over telegram. Comes out into a new kitchen, completely remodeled, and teaches, like one does on a cooking show, how to produce this in your home with basic household items. The group promoted this on the far right. Tatp was easy to make and they had some semblance of Osama Bin Laden as a resistance figure in their propaganda. Even in the reactions of farright efforts to take them down, they radicalized in their own bedroom on a computer online. It was the very first case of isolated right of radicalization into violence. The British Government called for a takedown, but we adjusted by migrating platforms and using youtube in a way that was consistent in preventing takedown due to their terms of service. That is with the farright is doing today. Its important to identify this so we dont make the same mistakes we made when confronting the jihadists. Does anyone want to talk about narratives used by any of these groups and a bit, depending on another ideology . I think what he was saying about adam watson and things with the farright, these guys will always fracture each other. This led me into thinking about how they are noticed never satisfied with the one group. It ends up fracturing and these are good intervention points. Especially for lawenforcement and for us. It ends up fracturing. These are good intervention points for Law Enforcement and us as interventionists to say this group looks like it is fracturing. Lets see if we can talk to these numbers, whether it be online or police do typical door knock scenarios. That is where a community can mix with the different agencies that are out there that are looking into these groups too. I know from the canadian perspective, some of this has been a bit of a challenge seeing these different types of groups coming up, but definitely, infighting is leading to groups falling apart we want to take apart. We want to take advantage of the scenarios. Thats something that stems back many, many years. In the farright, it is a constantly divisive topic between the different groups and infighting. These are good topics to get in there and pull people out. Melissa i think also tying directly into your easing. It mentioned 950 four hate groups identified in 2017 in the u. S. Can you give us the nature of these groups and how many of them are violent and how many are still active . That was a number drawn from adl reporting. It is an important one. Its hard to categorize. Hate is a lot harder to define than violent extremism. In order to hate you dont have to explicitly call for violence but there is an implicit in so see should Implicit Association with it. Often times, they dont act in the name of the movement, name of the ideology or movement, but because they are associated with this network that is promoting hate and extremism, they will oftentimes commit violence another realms of their life. Domestic violence is very important. These could be anywhere, if you look at the list, from five groups of guys appearing on a campus all the way up to National Socialist movements, which is one of the larger up to the National Socialist movement which is one of the larger entities. It is an indication that there is farright is harder to understand. A paper released this morning tried to demarcate between native, antigovernment, and racist violence. There are so many different strands. The phenomenon we are seeing now trans nationalization agent of the ideology we have. It is adoption by almost every single facet of the farright. Melissa thank you. Jeff, im wondering if you can talk about what drew you into the neonazi movement in the first place and what made you disengage and the radicalized after 25 years . Could you tell us what that process has been like and what your experience has been in combating those previous narratives with your former peers . Jeff well, starting out in it, it is something almost literally anyone can get involved. I know people have stories that they came from a bad home or they have some sort of trauma. I want the public to understand it is something that literally anyone can be recruited to. I come from a middleclass home, normal family. My dad and mom were there. [clears throat] excuse me. Literally, anyone can be brought into these kind of movements. For some, they are looking for brotherhood, they are looking for a network of people to be part of. For others, it is ideological based. For me, it was more ideological based. Once you are in there, and the various tactics that can bring you in there, we utilize our recruitment tactics under many different ways. If someone was religious, we would use christian identity. If someone was really into music, we would use music. If someone was into politics, we would use politics. If somebody had a bad experience with someone of another race, we use that. Theres not one specific tool used to bring people in, and that is what we have to look at as far as bringing people out, too. Its almost like you are inside of this bubble. You are part of this bubble, and you dont see the outside world when youre in there. To get people outside of that bubble, i think it is important we use kindness, compassion. Compassion, immersion type of activities and get them to understand there is a world outside the bubble, because a lot of ways, and im more referring to it as a cultlike thing. I know when i was in the movement, i didnt like that designation because cult is a bad thing, right . I didnt join the movement because i hated anybody or i wanted to oppress anybody. I joined it from the sense that im a patriot, i want to protect my country, i want to protect my people. A lot of people that are joining are joining for those reasons, not for the reasons that you that they simpson medically that they systematically hate people. They think they are doing a good thing. To unwork that, and to get that person outside of that bubble is not just a simple process where you say, oh, this person is just hateful. That is why they are there. The hate came from me later. It was not something that drove me there. I did not have bad experiences with minorities and other people. It was ideologically based. Melissa is that what you refer to as the counterculture . You had an article where you discussed anyone is susceptible to recruitment and you refer to counterculture. Is that the bubble . Jeff yes. The counterculture in the movement, you have to understand as i explained it to people, we had an answer for everything. We had the National Socialist movement was producing video games. We had two different videogames produced over the years, and i think the group still has at least five radio shows, podcasts that are on every day of the week. People can call in, ask questions. There were online chats, a forum, there was music and bands , there was family barbecues, lightings, all kinds of things. An entire culture wrapped into one. It goes back to the cult type of scenario where everyone you know was in there. When you leave and when you are in there, almost everyone you know, all of your friends, sometimes your family, some of the people dont have good family or support networks, everyone you know is inside that bubble. So, to leave, you are literally turning your backs on everyone that you know, every person that you know inside your support network. One of the females that i brought out since i left, she said, we were brainstorming about what are the Different Things we can do. That is why i am with parallel networks because they have that counterculture idea. And the plane to go forward with it. One of the females, she had said, we need Something Like Alcoholics Anonymous for people in the movement because it offers that, from that simplest outlook, it offers that support. It offers people that have been there and understand it. That is why it is so important for farmers to be involved in this process. You could have all the education, all the knowledge in the world, and if you are trying to talk to one of these people that will be there, there will be a disconnect. They will not quite understand. They will say this person maybe seems like they know what they are talking about, but they dont know what i have been through. They dont know my life. They dont know that. We are just predetermined, almost, to fight against that. To fight against anybody coming in and criticizing the movement or our ideology with ideology. Its like with confirmation bias. You believe what the answer is that you want to be in any type of thing. Like you, for example, the holocaust. You will look at the revisionist literature and say that is the truth, even if you have facts from the other side of that are there, because you want to believe what the movement says is the truth. To break that down is not an instant process. Nobody just says, snap of the fingers, im out of the movement. It takes time. Formers are absolutely critical to this because a simple way to break it down is like street cred. The formers understand that world, understand how we got there, and we understand how to get them out. Melissa you said you have different ways of bringing people in, and it kind of depends on what that person, what sparks an interest for them. Is that one thing is how do you keep the movement together, if you have all of these different segments . And then, how do you also bring people out to knowing that you got them in a certain way. Is that a tactic to remove them as well . Jeff yes. With the National Socialist movement, one of the things that we found i crossed into a lot of different groups. I would be invited to speak at klan gatherings, skinhead concerts, Different Things like that, so i was not just at the head of the National Socialist movement. I knew people from all of the different groups, so taking that into consideration and going ok, this is a group that is think of the south, this is a group that is focused on neoconfederacy and things like that. They would focus on that and that was their niche. Different groups would have different niches. The National Socialist movement, and a lot of groups that have religion, for us and our handbook, it said religion was for home and family. I found that one of the most divisive things in the movement early on was the religious thing. Whether it was between odenism, christian identity, regular christianity, catholics, atheists, creators. All these Different Things and they would all fight against each other. Not giant clashes or anything like that, like in medieval times, but ideological clashes within the movement where some of them would say, if war breaks when the civil war breaks out, we will take care of these guys, because they dont believe in our god. I saw it as a very divisive thing. For us, we kept it in house. We didnt have, in our structure, our structure was set up more like ranks, militaristic type of structure like the army. You had Different Levels in the organization that would answer those type of things. Melissa ok, thank you. So, can we talk about spreading of the message . What is the role of national and local media in disseminating extremist messages from your perspectives . Jesse and jeff, how did you use advantage in the past when you are pushing out message points using the media, knowing what they could or could not do . How did that frame your approach . Jesse i will start because i think we kind of spearheaded that with jihadists and other farright is emulating. Some of the things we espoused publicly was just to get into the press. They would put us on cnn, fox news, but the number one thing we concentrated on was that we knew that if we could get the antiislamic bloggers to get more awareness and to arm them with the ammunition needed to say the muslims were coming to implement sharia law, we could create a further divisive polarization. If we created antimuslim sentiment, we would confirm the narrative that they are waging a war against islam. We could just point to Pamela Geller as our evidence. It was not so much the Mainstream Media. Mainstream media was great because your website would go from getting a couple thousand hits a day to hundreds of thousands of hits a day. We kind of mastered that artform. Its very interesting the way that media works, because you would think that there would be an overwhelming interest in promoting positive work, like the work we are doing. If we were out there, promoting a rally against, you know, for white civil rights or something, we would have Massive Media lined up. No one wants to cover the positive stories because it does not sell or get ratings. In sensationalism that drives it is sensationalism that drives the media and the symbiotic relationship between movements and the media, it is easy for us to exploit that. What you do is, people dont realize, if you can draw media to your website or social media, the number of followers go up but you also go up higher in the rankings of Google Search engines. You start to appear, not anymore, they have come around that and hid it even worse without realizing it, but yeah, there is a really important the importance of getting into the Mainstream Media with the activity you do is keyed to the work of a recruiter. Jeff for us, we had press a press release department. We had a guy who was a journalist that would write it for us in a way you would submit it to the press, and would send out mass emails to all the press i the area at the time, and would tell them, in the subject line, but nazi put nazi, something that will jump out. If you put National Socialist Movement Press release, a lot will not look. We became experts in the sense of how to manipulate that. We knew it was not going to be good press, no matter what, but that didnt matter. As long as they were not saying really, really bad things, we knew we could reach the public through the press like nothing we ever did before. We would do public rallies. We would announce we would be here. We sometimes challenge people to debates and things like that. Doing things to generate press and activity that would focus traffic to our websites, to our shows, and things like that. And, you are going to get to some people, no matter what. For us, even if we spent time and energy going to a city and say we only have 20 guys out there, which is a small number by comparison, the press is going to come out. If antifa comes out and attacks us, even better because now there is violence, and the press has to put it on even if there is a media blackout. That has been a tactic we started wondering why, in some areas, the press was not covering us, because they were not eventful events. If we clashed with the other side, guaranteed press. That takes away looking at it from the side of the left, they think they will stop the movement by initiating violence and attacking people in the movement. It does just the opposite. The guys thrive on that sort of thing. They would say we did an event in mississippi one time at tupelo, and the police cordoned off the area. There was a handful of people from the downtown area. There was police and press. The guys that were there, the National Socialist movement and klan at the time, they said it was the most boring rally they had ever done. It was demoralizing from the standpoint of the movement. Now, other times, a big street fight in new jersey, why cant we have that again . They knew in the National Socialist movement, you cannot attack somebody. It was against our rules. I had done this for 27 years total. Never had not one person in the National Socialist movement arrested for violence at a rally, because we knew it was our rule, our guidelines that you did not hit somebody first. If you were hit, you defended yourself. But, to say that people were not hoping or wishing for that violence would be incorrect, turn thatat would into something that they thrived on. Theyhe farleft thinking will shutdown these groups by punching a nazi in the face does not work. It is what they want. Melissa to combat that, what is the strategy . Knowing that you know fighting violence is the number way to number one way to push out messages in a lot of ways and get the press, what is the alternative then . If you know the other side is trying to quell this. Jeff there is a few different ways to look at it. Everybody has the right to protest in this country, whether you are on the right, left, center, or wherever in between. You should have the right to do that. Its kind of a complicated thing, because in some ways, like in the example of mississippi, there was hardly anybody there. It was demoralizing to the people coming. The counterargument from the other side is, if you just allow it, then these guys are going to grow i think it really depends on how one looks at it. Peaceful protesting is fine. Peaceful counterprotesting is fine. But, the moment it crosses that line into violence, whatever side it is coming from, it is wrong. I think that is where Law Enforcement needs to come in and typically they do. Typically they do. They will separate it. They will take in people who have committed criminal acts. And, that is good. I think either ignoring completely we are talking from the streetlevel counterprotesters is that what , youre asking . Streetlevel counterprotesters either be 100 peaceful or stay home. Thank you. A slice of it. Im thinking we could talk about the telegram. It seems like violent extremist groups are always one step ahead and everyone is trying to counter that from behind because we are also trying to change course as we go along. Is there actively pursuing ways to engage in different prep platforms that people that come to the worker doing . What are we missing . What is the next thing . I think that no matter what we do, there is going to be an echo chamber they create for themselves in some area of the internet. They will find someplace to do it, whether it be online or offline. In the online space, i think that recently, somebody sent me this thing. It was like 100,000 different videos on telegram of hate music. What is that about . That is about them saying screw it, youtube is taking our stuff down. We will go here and share away as we want. That is going to be the way it is going to go. Which company is going to do are they going to moderate it . Remove it . Each company has their own way of looking at it. I guess in the sense obviously, it is a social and it is a social ingroup. They want to hear from each other about what it is what the next steps are for the movement. What should they be doing . What things did they do bad in the past where they can work on those things . There is a lot of that talk nice ontalk that used to happen storefront and it was regional. Stormfront, antifa are on there, a lot of Law Enforcement are on there, so why dont we just make a platform for ourselves . I think that will continue. We need to be up on it. The point is having formers involved in this type of work, we understand what they are going to do. Myself, that is what i used to do. I used to recruit online for years on stormfront, different types of platforms and social media when it came out. Facebook and all these Different Things. I think it is really important that we keep uptodate on these things. As formers working in the intervention space and try to create some standardization platform of how we work online. Ethic, i have written a bunch on the ethics of engaging people online. Think those are important things for us to keep up with. I know it is hard because these guys are forever trying to stay ahead of the game. I think having formers involved is definitely a positive, forward thinking motion for us to be working alongside the different agencies. We are going to go to the decentralized web and understand what that is going to look like 5 years down the road, more mainstream 10 years down the road. Telegram will continue to be the hub. Because of the way it was designed. We should be very weary of what is forcing that conversation in public around facebooks revelations around privacy. Migration, it is true it is on telegram, but because people are migrating and facebook is losing followers of those that shop and spend money they are adapting , due to privacy concerns, things like self demolishing storyboards. Only your friends can watch and they expire like secret chats. They are basically creating telegram on facebook with a cryptocurrency, but they dont want to talk about it even though they constantly do. When we were disseminating, two people that were conducting the research had to watch a video beheading video for the first time in their life because they stumbled across it haphazardly. We will be talking about that two or three years down the road when somebody notices it. We are there with counter narrative work. Takedown is never going to work in and of itself. Counter narrative work has to follow and it has to be informed by the redirect method made to video that took two years to launch in the claimed success. Darpa found out it was actually counterproductive for those committed into the ideology. Same thing we are seeing now. Taking down the incubators is only amplifying the message of those that are more prone to actually progress to violent extremism. They are migrating to telegram where they have lower numbers of followers, but the grievance they dont allow us to speak it is arming the narrative that if we cant speak, but his will act violently on the street. That is a really good point i would like to expand upon. That is one of the things we used as recruiters in the movement too, to say i have tested this theory myself. On facebook, i was banned from facebook because of my name alone. We set up accounts and posted like vacation pictures, nothing pro white. And then had somewhat anonymously there is counterintelligence work like this on all Different Levels. I could go on for five hours about that but this is one little example. On facebook, we set that profile up. We just had pictures, me and my girl at the beach or family. Send an anonymous message from a different email address to facebook and say, hey, the head of the nazi party is on here, why are you allowing this . This was years ago. This was before all the big deals about facebook and twitter and that stuff. The account was banned instantly. Now, in another sense of that, like on twitter, we would point out extreme black movements. For example the new black panther party. They would have certain people say things like kill every white man, kill every white woman, kill every white child. We would show that and that would not be deleted. But if you posted a white pride worldwide symbol, boom, that account was deleted. The reason i am mentioning these things is because a lot of people think theyve got good intentions. I get it. They want to censor these things and stop get all the White Nationalists off facebook, off of twitter. But as recruiters in the movement, it did not discourage us. All it did was say, look, you are being treated unfairly. Other groups are allowed to promote violence against you guys in the movement. It further radicalized that because it gave them that proof. We could say look, here is the , proof. You cant say this but everybody else can. I am not making it as an excuse but i am explaining this is how they will get further radicalized. If they are pushed out to somewhere else, there are ways around it. Vk was another one, like russian facebook. That is where everyone from the was on. You just find different ways of doing that and it becomes more difficult for our role as formers and people trying to counter violent extremism to reach them when they are not there. It is sort of like the forbidden fruit. When i was a kid, i do remember, around 15yearsold, the rap act 2 live crew had come out. That is the one that started the whole parents against music, pmrc were censoring things. Never in my life that i listen to rap using. At 15, im watching 20 20, nightline. There were no rap stations in rural minnesota when i grew up. I didnt know what it was. I was watching nightline and Lisa Campbell comes on and says our music was banned in florida. He was explaining it. What did i do . I drove to the nearest record store and i got the 2 live crew tape. I had to find out what it was about. It is like the forbidden fruit. Not to give a biblical reference but like adam and eve in the garden, the forbidden fruit. People say White Nationalists and all these Different Things, theres something you should not look at and you should not be able to check into it. It is going to have that effect weather are some people that are going to look into it. It kind of answered a little bit of a question you answered about how to get them out. Believe it or not, and this is something i learned from talking to jesse since i have been out. I said i think a lot of the people in the movement might be kind of closed minded about certain things. Like on the racial issues oh, no. They are not close minded. They are very openminded. I thought, hmm, i had to think about it for a minute. Yes, if i had not been more openminded, i would not have gotten into in the first place. That is one of the components to find the people in there. Some of them, yeah, they are just close minded bigots. Those people are in some cases impossible to reach. But the people that are openminded and looking at alternative forms of history, alternative forms of politics, they are tired of republicans and democrats, those people i think we can reach. Thank you. Before we get to audience q a, and i hope you all have questions prepared. I want to make sure we can zoom out and talk about u. S. Policy. The u. S. Has a joint Terrorism Task force that has teams in 104 cities across the country. Can they and should they prioritize domestic terrorism . They should. There are a couple of different complicating factors to date that have interfered with that. Number one, it has not been a policy priority for the u. S. , to look internally at the white supremacist threat. It is changing in the wake of el paso, pittsburgh and other events. Paso, pittsburgh and othr events. Then it gets to other logistic issues, in the sense that unlike al qaeda and the Islamic State which are declared foreign terrorist organizations giving the fbi particular investigative tools in which it could use to leverage those individuals, threaten individuals, intelligence tools to penetrate the organizations, for the most part, these groups have not been categorized the same way. Some of these White Supremacist Groups are transnational. One could argue that they are partnered with a group in sweden, a group in russia. I think House Homeland Security committee has come out in favor of declaring some of these transnational us groups as fpos, thereby enabling the fbi and joint terrorist task force to have the same tools to penetrate and investigate those organizations. When you get strictly domestic, u. S. Organizations that dont have an international presence, you get to one level more cobbler because they dont fit into that fpo box. Can the u. S. Government declare it as a Domestic Terrorist Organization . There has been a resistance to do that because the threat was not seen as high enough, but there was another capture set of arguments. A domestic organization, does that interfere with free speech . If i say i am in favor of nationalist socialist ideas that have pure aryan state and i dont violently act out on that, i am sort of in the freespeech category. Therefore, it is difficult for joint Terrorism Task force and fbi to investigate. We have seen a lot of discussion on how you get to those type of groups, how you create tools for Law Enforcement . It is an ongoing discussion that has not been resolved. People have talked about some potential guide rails that you can use to allow greater investigations. Thessa and, in terms of designation, do you feel like that could be a workaround for now to at least get people in on Material Support . Are there any negatives to at least starting with that . I dont think so. If it is an organization that has a foreign presence or foreign entity, it seems like an effective tool for u. S. Law enforcement domestically to, that homegrown violently cream extremists. I think that should be a tool that is in the toolkit for u. S. Law enforcement. That seems to be the easiest first step. Melissa i believe some people have called for a 9 11style commission for combating domestic terrorism. Do you have thoughts on that or reshaping what it looks like to incorporate domestic terrorism . Mitch a 9 11 commission, the question is is it is called for or is there more time for study than is necessary because we know the nature of the problem . There are some potential nearterm, that people thought about adding domestic terrorism analytics to the National Counterterrorism center. Something that is viable, like a component new could snap in place like a lego piece. That seems like it is viable. I am not sure from my perspective you need to go through the whole process that would be involved of doing the study, figuring out the results. We will lose 18 months doing the whole process. Melissa that is really helpful. Thank you. One less thing i want to cover is looking at ukraine and what that means. So, there have been a lot of people one example from the rise above movement, if you are familiar with them, also known as ram, among others have been charged in the u. S. With violence at political rallies. In your opinion, what is the draw for americans . We slightly touched on it and little bit being a transnational concern. What is the lesson we need to learn if it is something we are not paying enough attention to the u. S. . If anyone wants to jump in on that. Yeah, so, i think it is interesting because i think we talked a little bit about the e trends nationalization of the message. I think it is an indication we should start to worry about this e sustainability of the liberal world order we established postworld war ii. We need to consider the fact that economics, politically, socially, we are fragmenting in ways we are not recognizing and that are much more grave and serious than we imagined. I think it is one of the reasons when we conceptualize the scope of our mission with regard to the messaging in the magazine, we had to widen it to include polarization. One could see the consequent as of the social fabric tearing apart where polarization is rented. If polarization enhances and radicalization enhances, we can see that from the topdown political approach and bottomup society was. What we know is that the very low base of radicals want to become violent extremists, doing things you have to do to increase violent extremist acts is to increase the radicals. This is true across the globe. Once you get a message that is coherent at a transnational level, what you get is you get more support. Now the people that are promoting red pill from the altright, they are getting lambasted online because the new phrase is change pills. That calls for a leaderless resistance and action. Whereas people like he said screw your optics, i am going in. He is talking to the altrights ability to portray themselves as a mass movement. A peaceful mass movement. Now, when he launched, they all ridiculed him as counterproductive, part of the problem. Now when you speak like that, like they consider themselves radicalization preventers. Now, when they say we are actually do radicalize hers, listen to us. Now the entire chakra goes out that chat group goes out them. Exchange pill is becoming more acceptable. That is because of the manifesto transnational is ideology that has been expanding and becoming more coherent. That is a byproduct from that. Acceleration, this type of thing involved with eastern europe. This has always been, from my perspective, when i was working on things online, guys were talking about how do we get more european chapters . How do we go back there . That is our utopia. That is the utopian society they want to get back to. That is the goal, so how do we get there . I guess in the group i was in, it was all about taking that little micro and making it a macro thing. The internet was the first thing. Now, they have these different groups that are accelerating, everything across all different aspects of the internet which i think is the keyword. That is what they want. They want to use islam as an accelerant. They want to use sharia law as an accelerant. Anything that they can find to use and then actually have guys going over to europe. This is sort of a new phenomenon today to go actually fight. Guys, at least in our group, they were starting chapters all through europe, australia, u. K. That was the beginnings of how the internet made it available so within these movements, we could share these ideas and move these movements much bigger than just cities and towns across america. I can say about ukraine a big part of the reason why people are going over there is to get that training, combat experience. They are not just fighting. Half the guys on the russian separatists side, you have National Socialist on the russian separatists side. They are getting on both sides and getting training. Because the thought of the people in the movement, this is going to break into a civil war, race war or Something Like that and you want that training. That is why we were sending people into the military all the time for years and years. There was a confidential fbi report that had come up about 10 years ago. They were talking about the numbers they knew in different organizations how many were in the different groups. They were fairly accurate. About 50 i the time i left, about 50 of the membership had military experience in the past which was before that, we are talking like 10 , 15 . By the time i left, it was about 50 . Melissa thank you. Now to you. You can just raise your hand, please identify yourself and your affiliation before your question. Thank you. It will come on in the back. With the Public Affairs council. I have a question for jeff or anyone who can answer. You will hear liberals, progressives use terms like whiteness, White Supremacy as an explanation for membership and eventually moving to violence within the movement. Given what you said today, it seems there is not a lot of utility in those terms. There are internal disputes that seems to be on these abstract or broad labels or concepts. Im wondering what you think of those two terms, their explant a tory power. Also internally, how white the supremacists,ite it seems like there is a lot more complexity. Terms being those used as explanations . Jeff it depends on the individual in the group. There is a wide array of different ways of people looking at it. The National Socialist movement i use that as a Reference Point because that is where i spent my last 27 years we called ourselves the white civil rights organization. Most of the guys would tell you they are not White Supremacists. We knew probably speaking publicly speaking, we gave a pep speech and told people no racial epithets, no cussing. Anybody doing that on the microphone, somebody should not always they would and the persons speech because we knew the buzzwords would not go over well with the public. I dont think, and as long as i can remember, i have not called hitelf a way t supremacists. It really depends on the group and affiliation. It all depends on how that is looked upon as far as the terminology. I guess the other part of your question was how did the upside worldview that . Much in the same way that you said how the media covers your movement to your advantage. If you used that all of us are focused on the White Supremacy story. Whether or not you have use those to your benefit. Jeff the whiteness thing, yes, because it was all about identity. It was this idea that you are fighting for your tribe or something. If you were involved in the because iim in this hate other people and i want to hold them down. Even in some of my speeches, i would say we are like the men on the alamo. We are standing up to the last line of the white race. These are things i would say up there to inspire people, to get them motivated and that. I think a lot of people see it brad was say acceleration. They see it as an attack on whiteness. As an attack on their solidarity, an attack on their people rather than the countermeasure of i hear very few groups in the White Nationalist movement saying we want to hold these people down. We want to bring back slavery. That is something that a bunch of drunken guys at a Backyard Barbecue might say some thing like that, but that is not the real concern. There is going to be bigots and hateful people in every stage. They see it from a larger picture. Their race and people and tribe is under attack. It is more difficult to break. It was just systematic racism, that would be easier to break. But because they see it more of a worldview, that is what makes it more complex. I worked with Jason Kessler who started unite the right one. I was trying to get him out of the movement. We have some breakthrough, definite report. When npr put him on the spot in her interview and accused him of being a white supremacist, he tried to defend himself with the biological race argument. We are not White Supremacists does not mean we are superior, but in certain aspects of culture and intelligence in particular, on aggregate, we opera form outperform. It provides the justification. The problem is if you go on youtube or a communication problem that is preserved and you listen to jared taylor, sounds rational, sounds reasonable. The problem is there is no counter against it. The videos do not espouse intelligence and race but they have millions of views. The People Associated with that algorithm do espouse race and intelligence. You are armed with information and White Supremacists is being used to categorize me. Hisyone with a maga hat on in danger of being a whites premises white supremacist. Metastasize. It ghetto terrorism bureau. Counterterrorism bureau. I appreciate the effort looking at it from an ecosystem approach. You have really offered a lot of essential insight that helps us aserstand these phenomena, competitive, political, social movements. I think that is a right way to think about them. Two things in particular are a dilemma for all of us in trying to confront these type of phenomena you have discussed. Want to articulate them more concretely. One is these ideas of hate and acting in defense of perceived existential threats, those are not new. They always existed. What is different is context that makes those ideas relevant. So, if you are combating these networks, you are combating them in context. The context is pretty depressing right now. What is your strategy in terms of dealing with the context, particularly trying to almost hit progressively many different areas of the world, many different types of militant groups, and the context of the local level is very important in really having a chance at reducing the prominence of anyone group. Relatedly that is very difficult in a context where polarization is up. A lot of these groups perception becomes mainstream, as you articulated. It leads to a situation where you use everything in black and white terms. The related issues you touched on is the the dilemma that governments and other aspects of communities have in confronting t, the risks in tha of shining additional light on them actually increases their prominence. Flpc made an argument in one of the recent publications that some of these altright groups or farright groups, once you shine more light on their activity and behavior, they actually cower and reduce in relevance. You have said that more organized groups that are seeking to gain and create a recognition by virtue of their reputation, they are looking for that Mainstream Media coverage as a critical measure of success and a Building Block to further their objectives. As governments, as numbers of Civil Society, the press, how do you what is the right medium in coverage so youre not actually doing it for them . I will answer it briefly and i think mitch might add something pertinent to say. I think you use the very important term. We are constantly looking at what goes on in the field of radicalization studies. The intern is better on the ground than what they know. Experience. Our the thing that is always missing is context. If a want to shape behavior, i cannot shape the individual but i can shape the environment and make it conducive to being able to affect the behavior and trying to impact. This is something that is never discussed. Throughout this crisis management, where not try to create a paradigm shift in polarizing people to talk to each other. We are trying to predict what might happen. The overwhelming point of those allocated, attention on White Supremacy is an issue, but the way it has been covered, particular by groups like fplc, i have to say that the way it has been covered is only amplifying the grievance. They have induced a Democratic Party that has made White Supremacy the key narrative of the election. Now, what we have is proud boys strategically upping the manipulation with that in conjunction with other organizations that preach to be nonviolent in the same way that jeffs rules, do not hit back until you are hit. Shooting anything that antifa does is violent and why does chris cuomo support that on cnn . Chris cuomo has never been on the ground at a rally. What we have to understand about the context and understand the response abilities of the media if you are going to report on something, at least fix with the subject. Dont call yourself a war correspondent. That is easy way i can describe that. Melissa thank you. In front . Im just curious about the connection between or demarcation between the rightwing media, Mainstream Media and the extremism you are talking about. Because a lot of what is on fox news every night seems pretty hateful. Are these fairly Different Things or are they aiding each other . To what extent . If they are feeding each other at the kind of polarized rate, the media on the ground with the kind of extremism you are dealing with, then how do you ever do anything about that . Im curious your thoughts. A lot of what is on msnbc and what is espoused by Rachel Maddow seems a credit we hateful to those that are conservative too. When we start to point that out and think in the terms of yes,. Ut, not just, also i think that is one of the biggest things of the misunderstandings of what is going on especially on the far right. Why are the only talking about i want to sit anyones name, but infowars and things like that i dont think they are worth talking about. Mainstream media spends a lot of time talking about breitbart and infowars. In writing, this is awesome. I will recruit a whole bunch of people today. I think we are wasting time talking about these who could be just backyard conspiracy theorists. A crazy uncle, if we just dont give them a platform. Yes, some of this stuff is very weird and it draws people in and we want to talk about it, but i think just as much on the farright as on the far left. Even some of the real centrist liberal stuff i am seeing in canada, it becomes problematic because the focus is all going on one area. I think i want to try to be careful with who we are giving a broad platform to. Melissa thank you. Im Margo Williams from the intercept. My question is about the interventions you guys do and you have experienced. What is your relationship with Law Enforcement in regards to seeking out people to intervene with . Fbi director wray has given different numbers, sometimes as many as 1000 open investigations into domestic terrorism. Do you bump across the fbi targeting people and how do you assure the folks you are trying to intervene with that you are maintaining their privacy and security . Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for Law Enforcement to have an alternative investigation right now. That is largely because of people that report arrests, that utilize informants as if every single case is a case of entrapment. When you report like that and base it on a statement of facts that never goes to trial, you never realize a statement of facts is only enough evidence to charge a person. It has nothing to do with underlying investigation. What happens is you get in face of the reporter, who hate the government, wants to blame the government for using mechanisms. You could provide a practical alternative to sending that informant to let her get a claim of entrapment. They hinder the very solution of the problem. We have no contact with government, but if governments also think they could not open an investigation on and refer them to us, i would tell you society would be a better place. We have protesters everywhere we try to achieve the work we are trying to do. We need government involvement. Unfortunately, there is not. Are you seeking government money . No. Are you seeking to get grants . If they are seeking to provide access that there will be equal mechanisms to conduct interventions, probably not. In the intervention space where there is a serious risk for violence, there is not enough i bet if you talk to the individual, the outcome would have been different. We need that mechanism. I think i can add one thing to this, the interventions based in looking at government involvement. Prevent tells us different stories that we were not successful in this space. However, we need to look at i know in canada, they have started a referral process that goes through people that are in a certain space and when should Law Enforcement get involved. The top 10 may be, who knows . We started to talk about where things become a Public Safety risk and where things are actually just meant for us to go and talk to those people, Like Community organizations. Life after hate has been doing this for a while. It has the mechanisms of the precriminal space. Not every guy has radical thoughts or might be part of some White Supremacist Group is going to do some attack. If we can go and intervene with them and have these conversations and be in this dialogue and begin the process well before those things Law Enforcement might be doing some work on something and say it is a very low risk scenario. Lets give it to somebecause it. Also there is Community Groups that work in the religious communities and things like that that come into play. Dependent on different standpoints, viewpoints. Whatever the extremist narrative it is they are trying to present in those groups. These things are multilayered. Government should be there at the table for sure. I think a lot of the percentage lies on us as Community Members in doing more of this, learning from what we can to move forward. Just. S is a question for jess. The idea of the white civil rights movement, traditionally when i think of civil rights movements from the past, i think of a certain objective like desegregation, for example. What was the objective . What did they want, ultimately . Was way we viewed it they viewed it was the white race was under attack. Looking from the outside looking in, of course of all of course all these other minority groups neither civil rights movements. When we go back to the 1960s and when Voting Rights even before that for women, for blacks, were not the same. Now it is almost like in the movement, we flip that. We said ok, now they have hiring quotas. In some cases, it gives a less qualified person the job, whereas a more qualified white person does not get the job. These were the things we were trying to overturn. Hate crimes charges. That was something and i was in the movement, i hammered on that. You doare if something that is illegal and wrong, you are going to do the time for it. But now you have a where a white guy with may criminal record, and ive met with peoples families that have been in this case, i can think of one and i will not name him, i dont drop names, i can think of a man who is 19 years old, this kid did not have a speeding ticket, nothing. He gets into a fight. And it was caught on tape. And he took it too far. He is doing 7, 8 years in prison for a fight. He didnt kill the other guy, he didnt, you know because hate crime charges were added onto that. These werehe things, designed to help other people, to help the other races and give everybody equal footing. In the movement, we turn that around and say look, these are things used to oppress white people. Of course the white race needs white civil rights advocates, they need the movement to save them. That was our narrative. If we take away those talking points, if we take away the things that the movement is using, and make it a fair type of thing, if we take those things away. We have time for one more question. Thank you. Im cynthia, american university. Thank, first of all. My question is about generational differences within the movements. We talk a lot about fragmentation across different groups within the movements. I wonder if you have experience with generational conflicts . Im thinking when you are working on interventions, how do you ensure you are taking staying current and you can continue to reach the young guys in the movement who often will not trust any adults, period, speaking as a parent of kids of that age. Looking to get the right ammunition in the right funding to make sure some of the interventions we have on staff are young. And we work with a lot of volunteers online. We have collective twitter groups, facebook monitoring groups that are full of people from 18 to 22. What they find stuff online, i would never find online. They save me hours everyday. They know everything that happened in discord that afternoon. We have to recruit the young and mobilize them to do this work. If you dont attack and think of countering that, we will have a metastasis that is significant to the point where recruiters of the caliphate in the english language. So when the caliphate was pronounced, many more people traveled there. If you look at the data on it, those people that travel there were heavily influenced by the organizations that i established. In very many ways, it is exactly what happened, often, they insulted boomers right now. The boomers. They are like, boomers dont know how to meme. There are videos just like isis, lets rock. There is that metastases should and. I think if we think about it generationally, it brings up more questions than answers but it is something we need to consider. Theres a youth symposium and some of the greatest ideas came from these 15yearold kids. They are like, what do you know about facebook . Im like, how many i want to know how many of them are using it . Many of them dont use that at all. We are behind. We have to understand that we are behind in the game. The way that they were framing their discussions was we need to teach the adults. We need to teach them how to use instagram, teach them how to use twitter, and their activities when they go onto these things. Like what are they engaging in . What are the things that they are willing to share . I think, from a research perspective, that is what we need to be looking at, not just talking about extremism in general, we need to look at what are their routines online . What kind of content makes them go . Is it means, what is it . I think we can learn a lot from them. It shape some of the things we should be doing at this base when we think about doing interventions, especially with the vulnerable populations. Excellent. Thank you all for coming. Please take a moment to thank our panelists for joining us. [applause] thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] watch the cspan next week as the House Intelligence Committee holds the first public impeachment hearings. The committee will hear from three state Department Officials starting wednesday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan3. The top diplomat in ukraine William Taylor and Deputy Assistant secretary of state george kent will testify. On friday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan2, Marie Yovanovitch will appear before the committee. Read witness testimony from the deposition at cspan. Org impeachment. Today, President Trump made remarks to reporters about the university of alabama and Louisiana State University Football game