Understanding the Online Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Extremism Industry

The final speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is Eviane Leidig, whose interest is in content moderation. She notes the focus on the decision-making by platforms in content moderation studies; this usually fails to intersect with studies of counter-terrorism and counter-violent extremism online. Approaches to CT and CVE tend to encapsulate specific ideological positionings, too, that need to be better acknowledged.

Online CT and CVE approaches were shaped especially in a post-9/11 world and represent the power dynamics of their industry; platform moderation that addresses such phenomena is informed by a larger ecosystem of governance that occupies a disproportionate area of discussion. This follows a cycle of policy development, implementation, enforcement, and adaptation, and different stakeholders are involved at these different points.

This ecosystem maps out processes of knowledge production, and Eviane is exploring this through interviews and participant observation, supported by the Global Internet Forum for Countering Terrorism; GIFCT is a gatekeeper that can facilitate access to interviews with tech employees, yet even so companies are still reluctant to speak to outsiders about their activities.

For the researcher this also poses additional challenges, in terms of dealing with privileged information and navigating complex personal, professional, and company relationships. The career tracks of interviewees are also complicated, and their language is full of buzzwords that may make little sense to outsiders, as well as assumptions that have become dominant within the community yet are not backed up by evidence. Participants themselves also articulate the culture shocks they have experienced in entering the industry or its specific components.

Research is valued in these networks, both formally and informally, yet engagement with academics does not guarantee impact for scholarly findings: research informs but does not critique, Eviane says.