listen free on the live app or watch live any time on demand at c-span.org. >> tonight on c-span2, the "the communicators" looks at the use of social media by extremist groups like isis. then the debate for new york's 19th congressional district. after that rand paul and chris murphy on u.s. policy in the middle east. and later, mike ensy talks about proposed changes to the budget process. >> c-span, created by america's cable television company and brought to you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. >> host: this is the "the communicators" on c-span. this week a discussion on the issue of the radicalization of

cyber space. alberto fernandez is a former career member of the foreign service and is now with the middle east media research institute and seamus hughes, deputy director of george washington university's program on extremism. seamus hughes, when you hear the phrase radicalization of cyber space what does that mean? >> the explosion of using social media to recruit particularly in america to isis. they used twitter for a number of years and now telegram. you see the one and two individuals n u.s. and are not finding like-minded people at the mosque centers and they are reaching online. >> host: mr. fernandez, what does the team mean to you? >> it me it is a little broader.

a space where image, persona and reality is portrayed which is part of the tool that is used in the radicalization process. people think a guy watches an isis video and becomes a jihadist robot. it is more complicated than that. that is one element of the process that takes a person from being one thing to something else. it is like anything else. love, hate, anger, fear, complicated things. so the social media aspect is an important part of it but i think sometimes we go from exaggerated to minimizing. >> host: has it made recruiting for isis easier? >> yes. there is no doubt about that. it allows isis to portray a very powerful image of itself which can be all things to all people. you want depth?

you want religiousity you could have that. you want bloodlust, revenge, wha wha whack ways of killing you have as well. it bypasses television and the regular media and makes it accessible for all. >> and looking at the message but operationally you see isis using it in three ways. the first is grooming. in the european union -- in the u.s. we have individuals interested about fair faith and they are naive and there are people answering in an way that slowly introduces the isis' ideology.

that is the first scope. the other way to use online environment is logistic support. i think back to mohammed kahn who knows to the airport with his brother and sister who are going to syria to join isis. they found four numbers of people to call when he got to turkey to cross the border. how did he get those numbers? he reached out to contacts he made on twitter. logistical support. and lastly, what the idea the fbi director calls the devil on the shoulder. individuals egging people on too to do what they can where they are. it is getting harder to travel to syria and iraq and the message changed in terms of joining the so-called caliphate. it is much more do what you can where you are and you are having a shaming of individuals for not act. >> host: is there naivety from

individuals being sucked into this? >> there is no one pattern. you get all kinds of different people. you get people who are, you know, more conservative, you get people who are shallow, you get ga gang bangers, you get converts. but given the fact there is a lot of individuality and difference, yes, you get a subset of people who are shallow. this is an ideology projected to a social media and that can be profound but it is shallow. it is basically an ideology on a bumper sticker or in 140 characters. it becomes almost like a label or sticker that empowers people to do things or encourages people to undertake a path in life or a type of life. it does appeal to a certain

naivety. >> the old school guys ten years ago you had the knuckleheads but you had the big thinkers. they wanted to understand how this works and goes on. these fwguys are not interestedn that level of regularity. it is the bumper sticker idea of as alfonzo said. >> we live in an age where people take the national inquirer has news or info wars or something on the internet they see. so this appeal to the jihadist mobilization is very post-moderate.

it fits into the this hyperrealistic world we live in where we are constantly absorbing this symbolic pictures, images and thoughts. it is a type of mobilization for dummies and for the, you know, the people of today. it is not medieval. i hate when people use that term about isis. it is not that. it is something very modern. >> it is very much a narrow casting. if you are on facebook and only look at one newscast and that goes to only newscast of that political intent. it is similar to isis recruitment online. it is an echo chamber. you are only listening to stories of things that reinforce your already held beliefs and that plays out time and time again and descent voices are pushed to the side or kicked out

so there is not a way to interject in the conversation. >> host: are we talking specifically about isis or are other groups using social media tools? >> really the big lesson learns as a result of the astonishing success of the islamic state say over the last couple years in the social media space is how other jihadist groups have adapted in how they change. one of the big leaders has been what used to be called al-qaeda in ciancia when has really upped their game. they have adopted ways of doing media the way isis does media. they have adopted a certain set of visual style. they have upped the production of what they are doing. so you know they are trying to learn and do better jobs of counteracting this. but other bad guys learned less lessons from isis and learned to improve the way they do media.

>> and there is lessons learned with demographics. the average age of a recruit in the united states is 26. these guys grew up on social media. they understand the platforms in ways that normal people that who haven't grown up to this wouldn't. so they are able to learn those lessons and apply it to trying to get the message out. you are dealing with a group of people and their beliefs. they will spend their waking hours pushing this in a way government works 9-5 to do. it is a difficult dynamic to encounter. >> host: there is a high level of sophistication. >> alberto knows better how they dississe disseminate the message. there is not just one way. there is this narrow casting of if you are interested in utopian society and the caliphate this

is the message you will look at. if you are interested in seeing isis winning this is the channel you go to check this out. you can pick and chose what you need to fulfill any doubt you had to begin with. >> the scope and presence of social media is declining in the islamic state. the numbers are decreasing. in fact they have decreased by about two thirds in some ways. but two problems. one is the initial footprint or the footprint they developed on social media a couple years ago was huge. even one third of what they had before is really big. second of all, they still have the ability despite all this talk about what the west or u.s. government is doing, they still have the ability to project based on an incident, something they want to maximize, they can piggyback and use the mainstream

media and 24-hour news cycle the way a parasite would use it. >> host: what makes an effective video or effective presentation that you have seen online? >> theirs or ours? >> host: theirs. >> it varies. i watch all of them. i am not a muslim or jihadist but i am intrigued and horrified by what they do. it can be all things to all people. you will see a video that will be about them helping poor people and giving arms to the poor. and another one with pure carnage and bloodlust. and you have your action fighting videos. so they have an enough volume that if you don't like this one you will like the next one.

if you don't like fast and furious seven maybe you will like fast and furious eight. >> host: are these videos accessible to anyone on the internet? >> pretty much so. in 2014 these guys had free rein on social media. they had mature, long term presence. it wasn't abtobstructed. nobody was taking them down in 2014 but slowly that started to change so it is more difficult but not that difficult. >> that appellation is going to be interesting. the first advent of terrorist use of the internet was a dozen or so password protected forums. you had to know somebody to get in. you already bought in the ideology.

then an evolution over social media which allowed you to expand messaging twitter to be able to project a larger strength. with the removal of content on twitter, you are seeing them move to telegram which a mixture of the old and new. the password protected and the twitter social media. so, you know, you can get on channels but you have to know what channels to go to. what that means for recruitment or radicalization the jury is out. are they still going to be as viable in terms of recruitment? at the program we try to interview these individuals online. it is hard to figure out who is a recruiter and who is not. but they are not as naive or trusting as they were before meaning that if i had reached out to an isis recruiter a year ago and said i am seamus hughes

and want to interview i would likely get a response. now it is less so. less trusting of it. they think people reaching out are law enforcement or journalist or another ail and don't see the benefit of talking to individuals which means they don't see the benefit of talking to some guy in indiana who reaches out saying i want to go join isis. they are less likely to trust that guy. >> it is changing. it used to be for example twitter was the site for them. they moved to telegram but woe documented it at memory they constantly encourage people to go back to twitter. don't abandon twitter. they see twitter and they were the pioneers. other terrorist groups used twitter.

al-shabab, hezbollah, and hamas. >> host: why is that? >> because of the broad brush appeal to shallow. it is really easy to get a broad diffu diffu diffused ecosystem they developed to get the message out. they long for the golden days of 2014 when they were un unobstructed. at telegram they say it is a safe haven. they say thank goodness telegram doesn't throw us off completely. telegram occasionally throws them off but not like twitter has done. they are always looking for the next useful platform. another thing that is changing is the nature of the islamic state. what happens when the physical

caliphate is destroyed? isis is not going to disappear tomorrow or next year or two years from now. but you do see trends on the ground of the heartland, the isis heartland, under stress. ow is the message going to adapt to deal with the fall of rocka and mosul? that is the big question mark. how will that affect their presence on social media? how do you move to a place if there is no place to move to; right? >> absolutely. and the conversation about twitter is very important. you are right. they have been talking about that. they surge up after an attack. they were not on twitter after attack in france everybody jumped back in. there is an under studied look at the resiliency built into the system. on twitter they had shout out ow

counts. we watched lone wolf 7 who was arrested a couple months later. when he got arrested he was 21. every time he is kicked off they say this was lone wolf 7 and now he is lone wolf 8 so everyone follow this. there is dummy accounts and they trade accounts to be able to make sure if alberto can't get on he can use this guy's account. they are trying to adapt to this new environment. >> one of the fascinating thing as they do when they release a video on telegram is at the bottom of it they list all the different places where you can find it. you have twitter, youtube, the ones you and i know. but you have all these exotic triple quadruple quin triple places they put it.

all different kinds of venues where it can be and get propagated and into the bloodstream. >> host: what is telegram? >> i will let alberto jumped in but it is end to end encryption. think of it like a text message application but the ability to do it in a group. all three of us in a chat and i can push out a text to everybody and you follow it. again it is the very permissive environment for isis supporters. they don't go down and have backup accounts and repeat to everybody saying make sure you follow these back up counts. sometimes they sent out the backup accounts before the attack or major release because they know they will get kicked off and want that resiliency in the system. >> that is exactly what it is. it is a social media application that was setup by the guy who is

often called the converge of russia pavel. the company is supposedly based in berlin, germany. i have no reason to doubt that but i haven't verified. it is a european company and has some features of the old password protected sites and some of the features of twrt but not the ease of use. you have to know what you are looking for. you don't have the ability of hash tags for example and finding things easily as you do with twitter. it is a useful place for them. they documented how in 2015 they were driven from twitter and found save haven in telegram.

another platform they use is jus paste it with where you just put pictures and links to things as well. and archives.org which a u.s.-based internet company based in california. all three of these entities still -- there is a lot of terrorist material on these entities. but even there things have become more difficult for isis and jihadist than maybe a year ago. that is a good thing. it is easy to beat up on social media companies. there has been progress if you compare to where we were a year ago or two years ago. >> host: i want to show video and get your reaction. you will recognize what this is: >> we cannot allow the internet to be used as recruiting tool and for other purposes by our

enemy. we must shutdown their access to this form of communication and we must do it immediately. immediately. >> host: seamus hughes? >> we talk a lot about religions and i try to avoid politics. but in terms of the idea and what he is advocating for we look at these things. the redundancy is important. twitter was important when it stepped up to the plate and took down content but it is not the end-all, be-all. it is much more how do you take down content, how do you push counter alternative messaging, how do you introduce seeds of doubt so you can do in-person intervention because you will never be able to deradicalize

someone online and how do you put all these things together and get social media companies who are by their nature libertarian and have been forced into this position of takedown. we need to give them another alternative in terms of how do you connect, i think back at a my old job in government i was a community engagement officer on these issues. i was in sacramento and an imam raised his hand and said i want to do counter messaging and he said i will tape a video of myself and put it on youtube and i said that is great. nobody is going to watch it. it will be 45 minutes long, you will not know how to tag it and not get your target audience ft but i have the ability in government to call the guy on youtube, facebook and twitter and say i have guy in sacramento when wants to do something and

has a good message but no idea how to use your platform. those are not going to be the only solutions when it comes to countering this stuff but you can't just pick one silver bullet. >> one of the great myths in government is the bipartisan myth and there is a magic pixy dust or silver bullet that will make the jihadist go away. there is a button you push in social media and it will appear. however, taking stuff down, even if they come back is useful. it shrinks the footprint and makes life more difficult for them. there is more we could do. one test i did when i testified before the senate was i picked certain terms which isis and other groups used in their propaganda. terms from islam they use frequently and put in for example on you be to see what

would be the first result i would get back. in almost every case the result i got back was an extremist explaining a term. so you have a term say [foreign word] which is a very important word. you didn't get a liberal guy talking about it. no, you have an extrel -- extremists. there are ways to game the system to make it a little mow difficult but no quick fixes fl politicians love to make broad sweeping statements but it is not that easy to fix it. if it was people would have done it years ago. >> there is the presence of the actual caliphate also.

it isn't like if facebook and twitter went away 30,000 people would stop wanting to travel to iraq. there is a dynamic we don't look at. we focus on this idea of social media as the end-all, be-all and there is important dynamics there but other things in play. >> we often like to beat up on the social media companies. these are vehicles reflecting a reality. it may be a skewed reality, may be a manufacturer reality but what gave isis power is not that it used twitter. what gave isis power is it took the second largest city in iraq and a large part of syria like that. social media is a vehicle for that tough but the content is not content unique to social media. it is content related to the

real world. >> host: is there an ick factor in censoring these people? we are talking about twitter deciding what is appropriate and what is not, taking sites down, etc. is there a hesitation about that? >> there is a default in silicone valley and social media companies which is a libertarian world letting a thousand flowers bloom. that is the default mindset people have. you know, governments and societies always decide certain things are beyond pail whether it be child pornography or insightful to violence. you have countries with stricter rules than us. we have our first amendment and a different way of looking at it it. i don't think there is any

problem in trying to make life more difficult for the extremist. realizing that we live in a democratic open society and there is always going to be a risk. there is always going to be intolerant or unpleasant people using the social media and media. >> a lot of this plays to there is an easier solution meaning it is easier to take down content if you are a national official saying why is isis using your platfo platform. it is hard to craft a message. it takes the right people and resources and targeting. that takes time and effort and not a lot of return on investment. if you try to do trial and error online some things work and some don't. the things that don't work you have the political cover to do that. are people going to back your

play? you know, if you look at the last couple years maybe not. this is the issue and this is why i think we default to this idea of takedown is because the other stuff is really, really hard. >> host: finally, gentlemen, what further effort would you like to see made by the federal government or by the congress to combat this social media? >> i think in the u.s. context there is not enough done in terms of intervention space. so in many ways the online persona is a reflection of the offline life. they are ve-- if i am a parent an 18-year-old kid i am worried about i have no option. there is not a list of people to call. there is nothing i can do other than watch a train wreck happen,

hope it is a phase or watch my loved one be arrested. until we provide those avenues you will have these individual and parents that are hopeless and the best bet is unplug the internet which is not an acceptable answer for this. >> yeah, you need the ability to help people get off that path where they are led to violent extremism and you need to ramp up the ability to utilize the reality of people. the stories, testimony, personal life, person history of broken lives. it is underutilized. we have hundreds returning from the west and only a smart part of their own personal history

has been captured. view organizations. there is a good ngo that works on the area of defecters but there is more work to be done. >> host: seamus hughes, deputy director of george washington university's program on extremism and alberto fernandez, middle east media research institute vice president. this is the "the communicators." >> c-span, created by america's cable television company and brought to you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. coming up, debate between new york's 19th congressional district. then rand paul and chris murphy on u.s. policy in the middle east.