Facebook puts Islamic State supporters in touch

Interested in Islamic State jihad or Islamist terror? Facebook can suggest friends for you.

Facebook is putting ISIS supporters in touch with each other. Picture: Supplied

Facebook has introduced thousands of Islamic State supporters to one another as “suggested friends”.

Critics say that the “suggested friends” feature, designed to match Facebook users based on common interests, actively helps terrorists to regroup and build networks. The extent to which the algorithm has helped Isis is revealed in a study to be published this month by the Counter Extremism Project, an American non-profit organisation.

CEP researchers studied the online activities of 1,000 Isis supporters in 96 countries and observed that radical Islamists were routinely introduced to each other. Dozens of extremists were recommended to the CEP’s own researchers as friends after they viewed Islamist profiles.

Robert Postings, of the CEP, told The Sunday Telegraph: “Facebook, in its desire to connect as many people as possible, has inadvertently created a system which helps connect extremists and terrorists.”

After introductions are made, he said, extremists can quickly radicalise those who had been only curious. In one case, a non-Muslim in New York was radicalised in six months after accepting a friend request from an Isis supporter.

The social network has often been criticised for failing to remove extremist material. The new study found that of the 1,000 profiles it monitored, less than half were suspended over the course of a six-month period. Facebook also sometimes reinstated accounts after their owners complained, despite their Isis propaganda content. The account of one British terror suspect was reinstated nine times.

The CEP said its research had “laid bare” Facebook’s inability or unwillingness to address extremist content.

Facebook says it has invested in artificial intelligence and human moderators to identify and remove extremist content. A spokesman said: “We work aggressively to ensure that we do not have terrorists using the site ... But there is no easy technical fix to fight online extremism.”

The Times