Written evidence submitted by Moonshot CVE

About Moonshot CVE

Moonshot CVE is a specialist Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) organisation working with governments and communities to trial innovative methods of response to extremism and community violence. Founded by Ross Frenett and Vidhya Ramalingam, Moonshot CVE sits at the heart of a series of well-established networks, including global networks of peace activists, deep relationships with leading technology companies and trusted partnerships with Government.

This submission relates in particular to the effectiveness of the Channel programme at identifying individuals at risk; assessing the nature and extent of that risk, with a particular focus on online risk factors, and lays out practical suggestions as to how this could be improved. 

Taking Channel Online; towards a 21st Century Channel Programme

The internet permeates all aspects of modern life and violent extremism is no exception. Extremists do not simply produce and disseminate propaganda and then move straight to offline recruitment, they utilise peer to peer messaging applications contained within social media platforms to engage in direct personal contact with potential recruits to their cause. These online conversations sometimes completely displace offline recruitment.

Although extremists have thus far been adept at utilising these tools, this shift to the online world also presents an opportunity for intervention. Whereas the radicalisation process used to be a highly difficult to detect, the rise of social media means that those flirting with extremist ideas leave publically accessible clues as to the process they are undergoing; Facebook groups joined, Twitter accounts followed and YouTube videos shared. Despite this, systems designed to identify those at risk of falling into the orbit of violent groups often rely too heavily on offline interactions and take a reactive rather than a proactive approach, the UK Channel programme is no exception to this.

There is a crucial piece missing in efforts to counter recruitment to extremist groups; the proactive utilisation of peer to peer messaging systems online to engage with those expressing extremist sympathies. However in order to be effective and to truly mirror extremist recruitment efforts, online interventions need to be seamlessly integrated into offline interventions. 

A pilot study carried out during the first half of 2015 among a target group of 160 individuals, half at risk of falling into the orbit of the violent far right (based in the US), and half at risk of falling into the orbit of Jihadist groups (based in the UK), demonstrated that the practice of reaching out directly to those expressing extremist sentiment holds great potential. This pilot utilised Channel Intervention Providers (IPs), saw 60% of those contacted engaging and resulted in a number of Channel referrals.

Recommendations

Although the aforementioned online intervention pilot took place in partnership with Channel providers and resulted in a number of Channel referrals, it was carried out by a non-governmental organisation without the formal partnership of the Home Office and involved candidates from North America. It is recommended that the success of online intervention models is built upon, with additional UK specific pilot schemes put into place to further test online interventions across platforms. In order to achieve this the following recommendations are made:

●        Bring online engagement, including direct messaging, into the heart of all Channel case work and ensure IPs can be paid for this work, as well as face to face meetings.

●        Work with social media companies and CVE focused NGOs to explore the possibility of automating candidate identification to allow for a more streamlined and less labour intensive  identification process.

●        Identify a core group of Channel IPs to engage in proactive online messaging.

●        Carry out platform-specific training for a core group of Channel IPs on effective messaging across social media platforms.

●        Build a formalised Channel referral process to allow online conversations to be continued offline.

●        Begin phased expansion of certified Channel providers to include a new type of specialist outreach provider, specially trained Online Intervention Providers (OIP) made up of certified counsellors and social workers. 

To discuss this submission further please contact Ross Frenett, or Vidhya Ramalingam..

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