country to the leadership role that it has had in the world and that's getting away from us and and the way change occurs is by people stepping up like mr. jolly has here and i'm glad to be part of it as well is by calling out honestly and with integrity what's wrong and advancing some ideas to fix it and that's what the stop act is all about and that's why i'm proud and glad to be a part of it. >> listen, i would acknowledge this is a hard issue for a lot of people to talk about. i mean, the stop act would sideline the 435 best telemarketers in this town who are being asked to raise money for their parties. that's the reality. i'm not criticizing my colleagues, i'm not criticizing the nrcc or the dccc, let the nrc and dccc continue to raise as much resources as they want to raise, i think we should simply remove members of

congress from that. look, i will say on my side of the aisle, we are one party. obviously this is a hard issue to talk about but i understand and support what the nrcc is doing, i just think members of congress should be removed from it. to rick's point, i worked for 12 or 13 years on staff but largely in my professional life about 20 years with my predecessor, just a wonderful legislator, a wonderful man by the name of bill young. he came in in 1970. you know, when we first got elected in 1970, the nrcc raised money for us. the nrcc gave us money. now we are in a world where you get elected as new member of congress and you get a bill, you are given your dues. it's one of the worst-kept secretes around here. members of congress are told this is how much money you have to raise for the party based on years of service and i got a

400,000 bill this year, i'm not paying it. does that put me on the outs a little bit? sure. does that mean we can't find a way to continue to work together and i can't support the activities of the nrcc? look, we are one party. this is a hard conversation to have but we are doing it to try to change the system and not to judge folks. i want to thank rick and the national press club, each one of you for taking an interest, we need the help of the american people to start a movement out of this and pas this stop act, thank you very much. >> that's all we have. [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> is there a mixed message? you would effectively, i'm

assuming, raise money office as well. >> we still have the senate campaign with a finance director who is raising the resources. i wasresources. i wasting the consequences of me not being directly engaged? yes, but we talk about a lot of places. we should have more security. now i think we should do the "stop act". i'm going to keep talking about it. good policy makes for good politics. as the political support behind it? sure. i'm going to continue to talk about it. [inaudible conversations] >> i truly don't know. what they think online after 60 minutes chimes in. now we get letters.

>> $400,000. >> 400,000. >> this is looked at several times. some calculation based on the number of years. the 1st session was only six months or so ago. doubts about $80,000. i think we can close. as a civic candidate it is easy to say, but how can you best somebody, $2 million to the go back. >> and of course the nrc has

disputed that. >> they put out a memo. >> i think that was in place. >> and one reason i pushed back so hard, that was an integrity head. that was never the intent. printed off the meeting notes from the calendar. this time in this location. you want to ramp this up. hopefully cooler heads will prevail. both parties clearly have a system.

it is well-known. they get impatient. contribute toimpatient. contribute to the party in the name of a certain group. >> just a real quick one. a lot to say. you know, what is your response? talking about the system is corrupt. have talks about it? >> i obviously don't have any inroads. >> no one does. >> i think we tried a little social media solicitation. >> i want to know where donald trump is on this issue.

it is people like donald trump and bernie sanders talk about this comeau we got them. >> his twitter feed. >> we would get it. put the pressure on donald trump. the retiring and i'll. >> a constitutional amendment. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> i saw study other day. he had to devote one hour of the day's work to financial education if you want to go to school. after work except for the spelling. seventeen hours a day and a fair education. >> the thinking, it is an end game. [inaudible conversations] >> it is a journey. [inaudible conversations] >> pass onto the nexton to the next generation the same benefits that we had, maybe even make them a little better. >> that is what drives me. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> no, i think that the limits that are there, 2700 for the primary. 2700 for the general, those are reasonable in the absence of a small donor financing system, but that is not what released all the secrets. >> amplifying the outside. >> the candidates are targeted. third-party groups. >> knows, yes. >> there might be something to that.

>> also,. >> not only -- >> and i have a press corps. are they not in front of it? >> now y can say what you really want. >> all right. >> all right. >> we actually have one here. [inaudible conversations] >> the cdc released a report today that 279 pregnant women in the us have tested positive for the zika virus.

earlier he was briefed on the effort to fight the virus. let's take a look. >> a foam briefing from secretary burwell, the cdc director as well as nih about physique is situate -- the zika situation. and it has been explained repeatedly, but i want to reemphasize, zika is not like ebola. this is not a human to human transmission with the one exception we talked about. it is primarily transmitted by particular type of mosquito. we do know that if you contract zika, even if you don't appear to have significant symptoms, it is possible to cause significant birth defects,

including microcephaly where the skull casing, the head is significantly smaller. we think there may be other neurological disorders that are caused as a consequence of zika, and we don't know all the effects. we do know that they are serious. right now what you're seeing is a little over 500 cases of zika in the continental united states, and they all appear to be travel related, not mosquito transmission. meeting someone from the us went down to an area that has zika, got bitten and came back. we have seen cases in which an individual that went to one of these areas, got infected and sexually

transmitted zika to the partner. more significant, immediate concern is puerto rico where we know that there are over 800 cases that have been diagnosed. however, we suspect it was significantly higher. the reason is for most people, you may not have a lot of symptoms when you get zika. if you are not pregnant or your partners and someone who is pregnant or trying to get pregnant, you may not even know. now, here is the good news, because of the good work that has been done by the department of health and human services, cdc as well as nih comeau we have put forward a plan over the next

several months to develop a vaccine and improve our diagnostics. there also working with all the states and they are prepared if we start seeing an outbreak during the summer when obviously mosquitoes are more active. then we are also trying to do is develop new tools for effective control, meaning reduce the population. that is a tricky piece of business because we have been using a lot of insecticides for a long time that become less and less effective. new strains of mosquitoes become resistant, the methods were used i'm not as effective as they used to be, andbe, and so they are also investing time, research, logistical support

to start improving our ability to control mosquitoes. we are expending time working so that they can be better prepared. all of this work cost money. and we have put forward a package that costs 1.9 billion dollars in order to make sure that we are doing effective mosquito control, make sure we are developing effective diagnostics, make sure we're developing the vaccines that ultimately will prevent some of the transmission you see for those who have contracted zika and end up having children with significant birth defects. we do not just use the 1.9 billion off the top of

our heads. this was based on public health assessments of all the work that needs to be done. and to the extent that we want to be able to be safe and secure and families want to do with it, confidence and want to start a family, then this is not an issue. this is a pretty modest assessment. unfortunately what we have right now is the senate approving a package with a littlea little over half of what has been requested. the house so far has approved about a 3rd of the money requested, except that money is taken from funds we are currently using

to continue to monitor the fight against ebola. so effectively there is no new money there. all the house has done has said we can rob peter to pay paul. and given that i have a pretty vivid memory about ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring this effectively in order to deal with zika does not make sense. and i don't think it will. so here is the outside, this is something that is solvable, not something we have to panic about, but it is something we have to take seriously. if we make a modest assessment on the front end and this will be aa problem we don't have to deal with on the backend. every child that has something like microcephaly,

that may end up costing up to ten million dollars in the lifetime of the child, that family. that is attractive for pain and sorrow. and that up. it does not take a lot of cases. why wouldn't we want to make that investment now? so my hope was that we would have a bill i could sign now because part of what we're trying to do is accelerate the process. you don't get a vaccine overnight. initially you have to tested to make sure any potential vaccine is safe, maybe tested to make sure it is effective. testing it on a large group of people and make

scientific determinations. so we have got to get moving. essentially with the nih and cdc have been doing is taking pots of money from other things just to get the thing rolling. wewe have to reimburse those plots of money that have been depleted and be able to sustain the work that needs to be done to finish the job. bottom line, congress needs to give me a bill that has specific funds to do the job. they should not be going off on recess, and certainly this has to get done over the course of the next several weeks in order to provide confidence that we are handling this piece of business. the fireman family right now for someone who is thinking about starting a family,

this is a piece of insurance i want to purchase. i think that that is true for most americans. and understand this is not something where we just build the wall. mosquitoes don't go mosquitoes don't go through customs. to the extent we are not handling this on the front end you will have bigger problems on the backend. for those of you listening, tell your members of congress that this is something we can handle, have confidence in our ability to take care of it. outstanding scientists and researchers who are in the process of getting their stuff, but they have to have the support from the public. okay. thank you very much. >> this weekend president obama leaves for a trip to asia stopping in vietnam in japan.

tuesday he will deliver a speech in hanoi before traveling to japan on wednesday. thursday the president will participate in a g7 meeting and is expected to visit hiroshima on friday. he will return to washington on saturday. check c-span.org for coverage. >> next, a panel of experts discuss how isis is using the internet and social media to recruit supporters. here aboutsupporters. here about what is being done to combat the online efforts of isis. this is an hour.

>> good afternoon, everyone. we will get started. welcome to this panel, disrupting isis online. this panel is put on by the advisory committee to the congressional internet caucus we are hoping -- we would like to thank the cochairs and senator john thune and patrick leahy for hosting us today. they caucus hosts events every few weeks on salient topics to the internet and policy, and we invite you to come out for events. today we have excellent panelists with us today, emma llanso, rashad hussain,

and we also have seamus hughes. my name is miranda bogen. so, let's get started. let's give a brief overview and then jump right into it and get into the real issue with extremists online, what role platforms like twitter, facebook, google play in the right way to be approaching the issue of dealing with extremist content online and recruitment for terrorist groups abroad. so, as you may have seen going on, the social media platforms literate -- generally especially in the early years were not so quite in favor of leaving

their platforms as places for free expression. they have been adamant supporters of that, but gradually we have seen that being taken advantage of by groups like how should bob in somalia, al qaeda, and then the islamic state beginning to use the platforms even more actively bringing it to a totally different level. and now the platforms are facing pressure on multiple sides from their users to do something more. it is not something you want to see every day, but it is not something that we want because it is generally effective in recruiting people to go abroad. so really been working on

this issue and tracking a phenomenon, when did this start? how are the platforms being used, one of the groups doing? >> so in the early ages, groups online, they showed what we were worried about. as they shifted over to more open platforms, senator krugman. if you look at the number of individuals arrested for isis related, recruiters and spotters are going online with the demographic is. may have seen a shift moving back over, but they clearly use the online environment in a way. think of it in three ways. uses grooming. over the summer we did a six-month study of recruits online, so we look at about

a thousand accounts on a daily basis. of those you see them online. we ought -- we watch the young woman in the midwest, and a isis recruiter who is answering questions and innocuous way and weeks later was slowly introduce the isis narrative in the conversation. the other way is logistical support. a 19 -year-old kid from chicago it's picked up at o'hare airport, he and his underage sibling. they went through stuff and realized he has four numbers and deceive them of people to call through the contact he made on twitter, the logistical support. it lowers the bar. in the last way is the devil

on the shoulder, surveying people on. you also have to realize the conversation online. 44,000 twitter accounts. 1,000, 3,000 people with accounts online. but there clearly in that environment. it is not like twitter went away tomorrow we would not have this going on. twitter, it just helps facilitate recruitment. there is a reason why people decide. it allows the promotion. communities don't radicalize, individuals do. here if you're trying to

your usually doing online. >> maybe you can tell us about the phenomenon and how you're working to combat. >> it is a threat we take very seriously. a big priority is to protect the american people from attack. and what we are seeing isil do online is very sophisticated. talking about some of the approaches they have used, they have also done something different in that they have adopted crowdsourcing models through which they encourage anyone anywhere to go out and commit attacks. so isil is overwhelming. they are recruiting millions. they reach out to an audience of 1.6 billion, and

even if they are successful with a miniscule number of those cases you still a problem 20 or 30,000 foreign fighters. getting followers around the world. they are adept at using different techniques, targeting different audiences. they try to reach out to disaffected youth and offer a sense of purpose, belonging. they is a combination of strength and warmth and try to lower recruits with a sense of them roderick. and as twisted as it sounds, they claim to be building something. we have seen the atrocities they broadcast, but they have also put out positive messages, the themes of commodity and strength and claim to be building something. and they are calling people to build something which is

in their conception the caliphate. one of the realizations we had as government is that there are multiple audiences. we have to be smart about using the right messengers to reach the right audience. government is not always going to be the right messenger. roughly speaking take note of the audiences in the class potentially thinking about joining isil in the short term. they have immediate influencers, family, friends, peers, and then cultural influencers. and then you have a mass audience,a mass audience, your general public. government may be more effective in the prevention space are reaching out to people who have not already bought in the aspects of ideology, but you need

specific audiences to reach the specific class. perhaps they will only listen to other extremists. and maybe those are extremists that are not valid extremists but are extreme in their views that can persuade them to come back. that is not a role for the government to play. the best audience to reach out. so what we tried to do in government is where possible message or herself to the audiences which we think that we can reach, and the common things we have used, particularly against communities but also killing in big numbers, amplifying the stories, highlighting battlefield losses. they have territory would say can.to and say, and help us. so we.to what they are

taking in iraq and syria. we have tried to expose the living conditions. and perhaps most importantly we think it is important to work not just government, but with partners to disseminate positive messages that make clear what the rest of us stand for, the rest of this community stands for, and to highlight positive alternatives. if someone says i really have a problem of what is happening in syria and want to do something about it, we have to find other paths for people to take that are constructed. >> it sounds like we have the dual use of the internet as a platform for recovery but also as a platform for engagement, and we see that the platforms are torn between taking down violent content and threatening content and on one hand leaving itliving it up for intelligence purposes and trying to minimize what there taking down so that

they don't have to be the ones judging what is appropriate and inappropriate content. tell us about the response we have seen from the company'scompany's and the concerns they might be considering their asked to comment. can you hear me now? >> clearly over the past year and a half we have seen a huge amount of scrutiny on internet companies, big social media platforms about how they are responding to extremist content. and it might help to describe just a little bit the legal framework around speech online. what is it that enables the exchange of information and opinions that we all enjoy? in the us we have got the strong protections of the

first amendment for speech where we have very high standards for what is speech that the government can actually say is unlawful, relevant issues in that context is a comment, a direct incitement of element wallace of violence, true threat of violence, intended violence against another individual? but we don't generally have broad prohibition against hate speech, and there is certainly no definition. so already we are sort of in an environment where what exactly are we talking about , while we have seen a lot of companies do is in trying to apply their service which is kind of variable across platforms as ways to remove content, so

internet companies, boosts of speech online and generally protected from any legal liability for speech that they are not going to sell to the operator. this is section 230 of the communications act of ensures that if i read something defamatory i can be sued, but he can't kill and sue twitter. and this law has been incredibly important to the amazing innovation we have seen with the internet and online platforms and also to supporting speech online. always dependall of us depend on a number of different intermediaries be willing to host and transmitter speech. isp or some media provider, it would be very unlikely to be willing to let you speak.

but also in that bar, something if you are protected from liability for your decisions to remove speech, receipt companies developing terms of service where they set up the standards and what they will say is aa violation of rules or standards. and so a lot of the platforms of roles even though this is very often the speech is totally protected under law, they may still say that they don't want to post speech that is denigrating a particular group. standards against direct threats threats of violence. phase because a standard against dangerous organizations in particular by which they have the meaning terrorist organization organized crime. they have seen a range of different kinds of terms of

the years, and companies then in response to kind of user flags about speech that appears to violate terms will take a look at content. does this seemdoes this seem to go too far, sub over the line with a have already described to be acceptable are not on their platform? so, i am interested to hear from the rest of the panel about this balance. the opportunity of the internet as a platform to fred various different types of speech and to control the dangerous speech, the hate speech, and the research arena how do you see that? >> sure. we have a fellow who looked at english language accounts over one month to figure out

if it was effective or not command here is the take away with the caveat. it was effective in terms of producing a number of followers a person have make them back. there is the 1st part. here is the 2nd part. there is a built-in system for resiliency. an individual like terrence mcneil arrested for terrorism related charges last fall, by the time he was arrested he was 21, been kicked off 14 different times. there is a isis i could chamber that has shouts and say here is normal eight, everyone follow him. there's a built-in system and says we know your getting kicked off comeau what the helpbut the help other people to make sure they get back on.

from a research perspective, you clearly want more data is much as you possibly can. is clearly a balancing act on whether it is a necessary way. i tend to be more on the positive encounter come although there is some instance where i think it is warranted. >> we have been encouraged by companies enforcing terms of service. america chambers out there where they are posting violent tweets and beheading videos now, where there may be some limited cases in which they can be helpful in there is some intelligence, that can be communicated, but for the most part i agree with this view on it. it is important again to remember that overwhelmingly isil is rejected around the

world, and there is a reason for that, largely because of their own actions. in the lot of the atrocities they are committing, the stories that have been told by those who have been impacted, all of those are getting out through social media as well. and so i know we have a percentage of the people which is unacceptably high for all of us trying to prevent any single attack from happening, the supported and remember that these platforms provide an opportunity for counter messaging that allows the rest of us to communicate will be stand for. >> which is really the risk of the overbroad content policy, particularly increasing pressure on companies to strengthen policies making them so that

more content can come down, is this potentially vastly overbroad response to what ends up being -- it is a lot of one-on-one communications that end up driving the actual, you know, individual to commit an act of violence, and if you're trying to capture one-on-one highly tailored direct conversations with the policy that is about taking down all of the speech that is in the general area of discussing isis and terrorism and us foreign policy, you are throwing out a whole lot of a few very little bathwater. >> that is aa good segue because we have had some pressure from the us government that additional liability for the platform or at least to compel them to serve -- turnover certain information for government

agencies that use certain information in response. and weand we have also have more collaborative approaches with the summits within the administration and silicon valley here and in california. what is your sense of the right way to approach this if the overbroad approaches bad? >> well, so there have been proposals in congress that would try to require internet companies to report apparent terrorist activity who the government if they identify it. and this kind of proposal is pretty different. in the particular bills there is no real definition of what terrorist activity might be and what that sort of model set up is basically a huge incentive followed communications providers down the side of caution in reporting their users to the

government as a suspecteda suspected terrorist are suspected to be involved with terrorist activity. the results of that would be a huge amount of overreporting which is both incredibly concerning for individual civil liberties, right to privacy in communication and also not really generating useful information for law enforcement. so i think it is very much more, the need to support the environment where the defectors or the journalists on the advocates who are out there countering the message that isis presents and providing their own positive view point an idea, weidea, we need to ensure that there are strong protections for free speech so that that can happen. we see those reports about the way that antiterrorist laws in egypt in turkey,

countries that are allies in the fight against isis are also using those antiterrorist laws to the journalists in jail, and that kind of overly broad approach that ends up constraining the speech of exactly those people we need to get different viewpoints and messages out there, real risk. >> there is also an interesting dynamic. the government's amazing ability for convening. if -- there is the ability to do that. i think back to my days of government in sacramento talking to an imam who wanted to do counter isis videos online. a minute. amending grab my phone a record myself talking about how isis is wrong.

i said, that's great, but no one will watch that. here you have a guy who wants to do the messaging has no idea how to do the platform, tiger videos so they pop up. the government has ability to be the convener, the mets make -- the matchmaker. here is somebody we know that you may want to talk to. and that is how we have tried to use our role by bringing together the type of leaders you mentioned, civil society, artists, people that are adept at using social media as a platform, the advertising sector, silicon valley companies and after that our job is to stay communication to some extent but realizing government is not the best messenger in the space. our jobour job is to step back and allow the creative people that know how to put

up positive messaging and counter messaging to do your thing. there is evidence to indicate we are making steady progress in this area. we have had cooperative relationships discussions, not only seen announcements, the isil affiliated accounts, but we have seen polling data indicating larger and larger percentages are totally ruling out any possibility of joining isil. they would never even consider joining it. the disapproval rating is even higher. a lot of attention is paid and deservedly so.

those that would be susceptible don't fall prey. >> it is an important point. 902,000 active investigations. which from an fps perspective. >> large. the radicalize or disengage someone. and then you can have a real life off-line conversation. >> reaching that right target audience is a challenge. the numbers which you stated

approximately correct, you don't want to have a messaging campaign when you're trying to target that group that sends a message that somehow all muslim youth are vulnerable i just because some might face discrimination. they might be susceptible to violent extremism. that is not the case. muslim youth overwhelmingly are excelling in a number of fields. per capita at the same level or higher, per capita or higher income levels and so you don't want to have kind of a one-size-fits-all the audience we have talked about, and if you look at the report recent converts.

sometimes there is an area about the. muslim youth are generally susceptible of vulnerable. 40 percent of those did you grow up as young muslims. we have to be careful. isis is not -- just because they are muslim it is not the number one conversation point at the dinner table. they are overwhelmingly rejecting the message. >> so, messaging itself is one issue.

targeting is equally as important.important. is there a role for internet platforms to help advising how you go about that or two prioritize certain content algorithmically? overseeing anything in that direction? is that from the speech perspective equally is problematic? >> all the things we have seen from a couple of the big social media platforms of been much less about actually affecting the main kind of content. pretty clear about not wanting to change. i think that's the right call. the access to information and reviews and perspectives

are out there. undermines a lot of the good counter narrative. the programs they have had with nonprofits. a number of different kinds of topics focusing in on the question of radicalization and extremism are now, the advertising space that might appear alongside search engines. sponsoring different nonprofits so that they can have their message show up alongside related content. companies getting too far and. this funny relationship, we really like it content we care about it is displayed to us.

but also it seems like companies are taking a non- neutral or ideologically motivated position, that can make people uncomfortable. the more we can hear from the company's comeau what are they doing them all we can see open public discussion about what government might be considering as opposed to closed-door meetings really get weeks of agendas and bits and pieces. the news the more transparent more comfortable.

>> a lot of talk. to cooperate with the government, the snowden revelation was not desirable my senses we have seen a shift and users are wanting to see more of that. trying to keep the distance will start to evolve away from that? >> i would come back to the point. one take away we can have is that when people finally -- you don't want to surprise

people with what's going on. that creates a strong backlash. it is our right as citizens to know how was our government affecting our environment for speech, influencing what access to information and publicly have. having his conversations more publicly is important which is not to say that necessarily we want really close coordination, very much glad to hear you talk about the recognition of when the government needs to step back because the worst thing would be to undermine the efforts of the people providing alternative viewpoints because those people are cast as being too close to the us government. >> the sensitivities you mentioned, but at the same time social media companies

are very clear about the fact that they don't want to have the platforms being used by terrorists to spread their message. a lot of basis for cooperation and we are seeing progress in that area. >> so given the sensitivity and given the overbroad approach, what would be helpful companies, civil society to the american people to helping combat this content in the right way and the smart way? >> there is some low hanging fruit. we talked to a number of muslim american community members, leaders, legislators and they say, i want to get on than engage, talk to youa kid am worried about and bring them back into the fold. more worried if i do i will

get suspected. so there is some level, some policy for is acceptable and what is not. very broad charge. i understand when i engage these individuals that i could probably head up against stuff. but to ask somebody wants to do counter messaging to understand the nuances would be something which the government could provide relatively easily. >> and i think one contribution that companies can make and all of this in addition to the work there already doing is even more improvement appeals processes for when people have their content come down or accounts reactivated because we know as they are focusing on trying to

enforce terms consistently, you know, mistakes happen. the scale of content that gets posted and reviewed every day is enormous. there are going to be cases where the ten or 15 seconds of human review that makes the decision errors too far on the side of take them, and you might be losing really important countering voices in that kind of process. ensuring that there are ways , and just generally in the way that we look at how content policies are enforced on platforms to make sure that they are looked at not just with an eye to how to keep the most extreme more violent content off, make sure that the space for discussion and debate about the content and about these issues more generally can still persist. >> and we can look in to providing additional guidance for those that are

doing the work, they shouldn't be in a position where they have to be concerned about being accused of providing material support. we look at all of those examples on a case-by-case basis, and it is clear in cases where someone is out there and try to do the good work of countering the message rather than supporting. >> i'm a bit of a tight schedule, so i want to open it up to questions from the audience. and then were shot has to run out. does anyone have anything that would like to ask? ..

and of course it's always a heartbreaking story and you can understand why a person is sort of trying to find some restitution but i think need to be very careful about how broadly we would scope who is the proximate cause of the death of somebody in a terrorist

attack and i think all my platforms and a very broad idea of general liability for actions that are many steps removed from anything directly involved is not. >> i know the department of justice has played with the idea of going after people who are sharing the content itself and is that something you're going to pursue our party approaching people that are not promoting the content directly and they are supporting it and sharing it? >> our approach is the first amendment and there is a lot of speech that is protected speech that we may not agree with but we are not prosecuting those cases. the cases which can be prosecuted are ones in which there is a specific threat or solicitation of crimes against particular individuals. i think tim referenced one of the cases from ohio. those are the types of cases we

are talking about. >> i know we have to wrap up in a few minutes so given this is such a live issue in such an important one because it's affecting the lives even on whatever scale it's happening, it is very distressing i think to the public and to the platform having to deal with and everyone working in it. would he think the most important thing for congress to take away from this issue is moving forward as they are thinking about how to legislate or hold off on legislating or asking the companies for help and maybe on the flipside and the other parties involved would he think is the most important thing we should be doing to continue the trend of individuals rejecting the message that is spreading on line? >> i mean it's very clear we are not going to kill our way out of this problem. we are not going to delete their way out of this problem so we need to continue reaching the right audiences do through the right messengers and that

requires of course not just the government but a whole range of factors. i think we have put into place now at the government level and working with a number of mechanisms by which we can get out the right counter messaging, the right positive messaging and in the right positive alternatives for young people as they spoke about in that they get in -- beginning may be disaffected for some reason. maybe something is happening on the other side of the world which they view as an ice,injust an atrocity against the whole people and they say i cannot sit still. i could do something about it so we have to work together to find those mechanisms for that small segment of the population that may be attracted to isil's message and remember to keep in mind their message is overwhelmingly rejected already. we don't want to be reaching out in the name of reaching target communities with overbroad tact

ticks or messages that could taint entire groups of vulnerable or as a problem when we have reaching into some accurate estimate prevented space general audiences we are trying to reach through perhaps, set up those or different actors? >> i say for congress and everyone to remember that the u.s. will be watched very closely for our responses to all of this. the standard that we sat in the model that we set can do either a lot of good for a lot of harm. so keep it on the side of good and show that there are ways to pursue this fight against isis that doesn't involve broad taste censorship, but don't try to play whack-a-mole with content on line that are conscious of and actively trying to avoid the stigmatizing effect of muslim

communities and instead focus on showing how truly supporting our fundamental values of freedom of speech and the right to privacy can actually help us succeed in the fight. i think that is ultimately as a message for what does it mean to connect the site from a position of democratic ideals will be much more convincing than an approach that is motivated by fear and looks to crack down on more speech and put many more people under scrutiny by the government. >> i think i'm going to be contrarian. congress has the ability to have a large megaphone and went congress uses a megaphone in terms of shaming we see actions i don't believe there would be a summit convened by the white house it wasn't for congress constantly hammering social media. it's almost a function. there's a reason why youtube has

a flagging for terrorist content. for two years they got beat up on the hill about videos of u.s. soldiers being killed that were posted by a baghdad site. so i understand the free speech and free expression issues but congress can play a role in forcing the convening, as uncomfortable as it is and the default is very libertarian and understandably so. but there is a balance between the family members we talk about in a lawsuit and the conversation on line. >> we have a question from the audience. >> i wanted to discuss the importance of cybermessaging involving content. is there a way of measuring the success of that in terms of if

someone is exposed to this type of content but actually translating that to off-line behaviors and being able to somewhat correlate that is actually proving to be deradicalized in? is there a way to measure that or is that just sort of guessing in the dark? >> i guess i will start. i think it's nearly impossible. easier if you look at there's a think tank that does small sample size with 14 people with direct on line internet connections to see how disengagement would work but it's a small sample size and its very labor-intensive to do that. in terms of broad-based messaging and how you measure that it's very difficult. see something say something, it's a very difficult thing. >> it's difficult to prove a negative absence of messaging who would have gone into violent

extremism and who wouldn't. but there is data that's out there and we see the types of messages that tend to resonate that get traction stories of defectors and stories of family members. there is data indicating that some of the best interveners or family members and particularly mothers. there is polling data and i mention the poll indicating that 80% of arab youth between the ages of 18 and 24 just one year prior when that same poll was taken that number was 60% so you do see a trend in some of the polling they are able to measure , what types of messages and oftentimes not government messages but messages are up there. at the end of the day finding the right metrics has its challenges. that doesn't mean there aren't metrics that we can use that we continue to use and we should

continue to develop the use of data as we engage in what we are doing. i think it's important to make sure that we have empirical research particularly in the area that shame is spoke about because you do get a sense of what types of tools and strategies work and what types don't. some of that we have seen from the work that's done in europe and other places and so is government we try to draw on some of those studies by groups for examples such as germany and others that are operating in this space. we have examples of programs that have worked and we have examples of programs that have not worked. we try to take from the best to go forward. >> i know you have to run's so sorry about that. we will keep the questions going for the other panelists.

[inaudible] groups in the united states and toddlers have killed more americans than the isil and so given mr. hussain's concerned that we don't want to create the illusion that muslim youth are at risk because they are not the one the focus is on violence or violent extremism or isil inspired violence doesn't that kind of create if you were just looking at one slice of violence in the united states win when overwhelmingly that violence committed in the united states is not inspired so why separated out? it seems like the indicators are sort of the same thing, alienation, frustration, that whole general thing that drives

people to do violent things. >> i would say that's a fantastic point. i think it's been one of the critiques of the countering violent extremism frame on some of the government's work in this area because there is this back-and-forth between what are we talking about all violent extremism or are we talking about all the threats domestically to violence against civilians or are we really talking about anti-radicalization for people who might be recruited to isis? i think it's very clear that people notice that is shifting target. as saying courage the government to be a lot clearer about what is the focus. as you say if they are actually much significant threats inside the united states like the safety of our civilian population from people who have really nothing to do with isis

prior sizing of focus on that could be very important. >> i don't think it should be an either/or proposition. when the administration focuses on countering extremism, in practice it spoke us in primarily on fighting terrorism. you should be as worried as you are about the dylann roof set the world. especially when it comes interventions. we are actually looking at this exact issue in next month we will have a paper that looks at isis supporters on line versus versus -- on line what they talk about and has a different house at the same, what do followers like on these types of things so he could have been nuanced conversation about extremism and have do we focus on research on these types of things? i hate to do the numbers on who

has been killed more and it becomes an either/or proposition that i would rather not do that because these are families that have lost. we talk about jihadists inspired terrorism from numbers are similar to white proud -- white supremacist. they are small when you look at the general population. >> one is just about volume specifically with american users or american content. here over the past five years has the isis traffic gone up or down or stayed relatively the same or and is there way to measure it and one on takedown. when takedown campaigns are takedown efforts from the government either funding organizations are convening conversations to talk about how do we do takedowns when does this become, i'm sorry.

the takedown question is when the government's funding organizations participate or lead campaigns to take down content is their guidance that can be offered to how they are attempting to run which i assume are well intentioned to target terrorists. and then on counter messaging what are your thoughts around government convening conversations with funding organizations to do counter messaging and at what point does that become the domestic propaganda campaign to influence religious views and political foreign-policy views? >> it's an excellent point that you raise. i think an example is programs that are going on in the united kingdom and of the european

union level. they have these programs called internet referral units which are actually one step further than your funding non-profits where actually members of the government themselves, as the metropolitan police and the united kingdom chief law enforcement body who is a unit are dedicated to going up to social media platforms identifying platforms that they want to see come down and figuring out which of the platforms terms of service it violates and then fighting it to the platforms for their review so that is sort of this way of saying it's a platform whose making the decision whether comes up or comes down. but we think there is a huge concern that kind of approach. this is an informal government program seeking to have certain content removed from the web and because companies terms of service can be much more

restrictive than what government can actually go after under the law is a way for governments to succeed in getting content taken down but they wouldn't actually be able to go after. corey. even when you expand that out of step and say governments are funding and incentivizing private parties to do that kind of fighting you still and up back at this question of government action. when you have got government identifying particular kinds of content, particular kinds of seekers and trying to restrict that even through the somewhat 10 made it means that would even in the u.s. raised an issue. >> i will take the first one which is the increase in social media compared to other terrorist organizations. i think it's clear to see that isis is adept to social media

and i see that meaning between 4000 new videos a year. they go on twitter and they have various different platform channels. i'm on 50 telegram license channels right now, sorry rashad so there had different entry points to talk to these individuals. think of it like a democratization of the program. there were three girls from denver a 17-year-old and a 1616 or over jumped on the plane and were bound to go to turkey. they got picked up in frankfurt and turned around because their father called every phone number in the colorado phone number -- phone but prayed how did they figure out how to do all this? they one on two a tumbler page which is english-language which gives step-by-step directions and to talk to when they got to turkey and what to say to customs. it lowers the bar for a 17 okay from denver to be able to realize how to take that next

step. these people always figured that out but it still allows for an ability similar to what social media is in general. i had a conversation with them that i wouldn't be able to have five years ago because i know who she is and where we can go back and forth, similar to i can have a conversation with a foreign fighter in fallujah right now and ask him everything he knows in terms of what do i bring in what way not bring in who i talk to. it's concerning from that perspective and that's where isis is very adept, allowing for those who would not necessarily be, it's making use in a way that i think is concerning. i will leave it there. i would have to point back, charlie winter at georgia state university is working on looking a propaganda on line and you may want to look at his recent

reports on that. i will pull this and get back to you. >> can you talk a little bit more about what qualifies -- and what is overreach? >> it's a great question and i would love to hear from seamus on how you framed your research but the concern that we see is that it depends on which government officials we are talking to and are you talking to someone from the u.s. or the u.k. or europe but you can hear from everything from somebody planning a specific attack that seems very clearly something to be unlawful to just sort of general pro-isis propaganda. so we heard references to videos that are about, not about

inspiring any specific violence to talking about how the caliphate was that economic opportunities there are. it's views that are disagreeable or flat-out wrong or just untrue but it's not anything that falls under traditionally what we consider unlawful speech. it's much more in the kind of building of peoples positive feelings about isis. so when you see the conversation kind of sliding back and forth between well do we want to stop this commission of violence or to want to try to convince people that they are wrong to think in a certain way? it's that latter where it's really trying to convince people that they have the wrong view or the wrong ideas. i don't think it should be the goal of any of these programs because i don't think it's going to work. stopping people from specific

acts of violence is absolutely an inappropriate goal but trying to win people over to think you know according to a certain set of values and beliefs i think is a losing proposition. >> this is also one of the reasons that people have brought up why a platform is not put an algorithm like they do for child pornography for instance the answer being that is so subjective. propaganda is extremist content is incitement of violence. it's a scale that you have to really look at each piece of content and visually. technically when companies are filtering for child pornography your -- what they are doing is comparing known images of that material to things that are uploaded to their own servers so they can see the file that one of our users is trying to to upload those that match is something we are developed out

we are not wanting to have on our platform? that's an image matching that is very different from the subjective assessment day today of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of pieces of content that could run everything from a direct threat to somebody or a joke between friends, got full discussion about the ideas that isis is putting forward or instructions for how to -- this huge range of content that gets swept up in this extremist content bucket that defies that algorithmic assessment. >> have you defined the buckets? >> i think it's important to me talk about isis, isis in america is a spectrum zone once i get something like tweeting to 4000 followers about how great isis is.

spent 11 years in jail and that's once had the spectrum but on the other side is dialing up someone from st. louis gets u.s. citizenship in 11 days later goes to syria and becomes a mid-level commander running a battalion of foreign fighters. there are two different extremes on that. when we look at me scoped out the report we looked at mostly tears and charges with a few communicating threats depending on the exercises and then in terms of extremist content we look at those. if someone is tweeting to one follower, they are nice a supporter but i'm less interested in i am between the 10 or so that are rushing out an interesting content that i haven't seen before and if they are connected to them or if they are talking saying -- that's where i start becoming more

adjusted in the connections to it not just the speech. >> a little bit more about the food rather than a wet. any other last questions? >> of you folks considered mocking or making fun of isil and some of its practices? for example the men seemed to be guys who can't get a date except by kidnapping them. i would think they would be a lot of room to make fun of them of some the things they do. putting them in context, these do seem to be guys who can't get a date. >> alternate approaches. >> i think this is the important question. what kind of counter messaging is going to be effective.

>> mocking them as opposed to countering. and this is where the term counter speech for counternarrative or messaging falls apart. what we are talking about is people sharing their views, sharing their ideas and one thing we have seen from content on social media is that funny content gets shared a lot more than nice five paragraph essays carefully breaking down points. there's definitely a world for that too. >> you it could send a very interesting message. >> i would hesitate in terms of what would be effective for isis. we actually have data with aqi mocking was less effective when they had videos mocking aqi then when they were talking about the atrocities are killing civilians.

a news article last week about an isis fighter couldn't shoot straight in that got shared thousands of times and everybody in the media thought it was great. it didn't get any residency -- resonance in the echo chamber we were looking at in the way that that -- which is english language issa supporters on line they tend run the data more. they tend to care more about defections of people will stand up and say i was wrong for things like that. they tend to get angry about that and want to contract that. there has been a market shift in messaging since administration talks about the losses of territory. isis videos have shifted away from giving candy out to kids and rocket do we are waiting battles here and there so they are key in what we are we are doing is how they are adjusting their messaging. the last thing that is quite effective at least looking at

different instances is when you bring up families and the dangers of what happened when an individual goes to interact and what they do when they leave their families behind, there's a level there. i'm talking to a number of individuals who are at true believers on this but when you bring up family members talking moderately or what you think about the fact that you left them behind, they tense up in a way that i'm not used to seeing. this is also to say radical station is a highly complex process. humans by their very nature complex the disengagement or deradicalization is going to be equally as complex and not linear. things i work for you are not going to work for you so how do we figure that out in terms of messaging and that's something rashad would have to figure out for me. it's difficult to get the dynamic.

>> any last point? thank you offer coming out. we appreciate you coming out and we have upcoming events the next few months. keep your eye on the mailing list for the congressional internet caucus or their web site net caucus.org and have a great weekend. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> from the "washington post" transformer summit. tomorrow, president obama heads to vietnam on his way to a g-7 meeting in japan. reporters asked about the trip at today's white house briefing. >> one last one on the