Attacks on schools: Brazil must join global coalitions against extremism, says researcher

Amidst the tensions caused by the recent attacks, the country’s transnational articulation becomes more important, underlines Michele Prado, specialist in online radicalization

for the researcher Michael Pradospecialized in online radicalization and extremismit is essential that Brazil joins the two global counter-extremism/terrorism online forums: the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) and Christchurch Call. “If (the government) had shown the terrorist attack videos being broadcast on tcctwt (true crime sharing extremist community), it would be impossible for Twitter saying it doesn’t violate the terms of use because Twitter itself is a co-founding member of GIFCT,” he says.

“It is one thing to have government pushing. It is quite another to have 120 governments plus academia from different countries and other platforms pushing to follow safety protocols for violent extremism/online terrorism.”

According to Michele, Brazil has not yet joined the forums because the approach to extremism in the country was made from a purely political-electoral and party perspective.

“Not to mention the ideological rancidity of the public policymakers here. They think Brazil alone will solve the problem. It won’t. This is not just a local challenge. The internet has increased the possibilities for extremists to amplify their ideas and, in the case of violent extremists and terrorists, being able to make the violent calls to action they produce reach an even wider audience.This is often done transnationally.Content circulates transnationally within of these digital ecosystems.”

Remember that after the Christchurch attack, New Zeland, the Christchurch Call global forum was created, bringing together 120 governments (through the security secretariats, the ministry of foreign affairs or the government offices themselves), as well as universities, researchers, NGOs and civil society people. We then moved on to discuss the adoption of security policies that act globally to limit the spread of violent extremist and terrorism content online. Brazil is not part.

Just as it is not part of GIFCT, today the largest and most effective initiative in the world.

“When you have an active shooter promoting a massacre somewhere in Europe or the US, for example, GIFCT issues an alert protocol for all platforms from a database they have, and they’re constantly updating the fingerprints of that content. So they indicate to platforms that that content is potentially harmful with domestic or transnational terrorism and/or violent extremism and platforms go into the protocol function and remove the content as soon as it is posted, no manual work or complaints are required to remove this When there was the supermarket massacre in Buffalo, us WE, by a white supremacist, for example, a warning was issued. Because terrorist attacker live streamed on twitch. So while the video was posted, it was taken down.”

“The action must be with local regulation (in this sense, the actions of the Ministry of Justice go in the right direction), but also has to rely on transnational and global regulation. Because it is different to have 120 governments, it will be a different pressure”, Michele sums up.

The Justice Ministry did not comment on whether it plans to participate in the forums.

Source: Terra

Rose

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