Google is hatching a creative plan to fight against terrorism, and it will be leveraging its advanced search capabilities in the process.
Jigsaw, the Google-owned think tank formerly known as Google Ideas, is said to have been working for the past year on the development of a new program that will use a combination of the search advertising algorithms of Google and the video platform of YouTube. The program will target some of the most dangerous and least understood people online — aspiring Islamic State recruits.
The program, which Jigsaw has named the Redirect Method, will look to dissuade the people from joining IS and partaking in the hate and violence propagated by the group. The program can be considered a unique form of targeted advertising that will look to discredit an ideology instead of selling a product or service.
Under the Redirect Method, advertisements will be placed alongside the search results for certain keywords and phrases that have been determined by Jigsaw to be among the most common search queries for potential IS recruits. The ads will link to channels on YouTube with Arabic and English videos that Jigsaw thinks would be able to convince these people to drop their intentions of joining IS. Such videos could include testimonials by former members of extremist groups, the denouncing of imams of the corruption of Islam done by IS and secret footage of the dysfunctional IS caliphate in Iraq and Northern Syria.
According to Jigsaw head of research and development Yasmin Green, the idea for the Redirect Method came from the observation that while there is a lot of demand for IS-related material online, there is also a good amount of credible sources that are looking to counter the group's propaganda.
The pilot run of the program showed that it was effective. In around two months, over 300,000 users were directed to the anti-IS channels on YouTube, with Jigsaw's ads clicked on three or four times more compared with other ads. In addition, the users who watched the linked anti-IS videos watch them for over twice as long compared to the average viewing time of videos on YouTube among all users.
Jigsaw is planning to soon launch a second phase of the Redirect Method that will focus on extremists in North America, targeting both potential recruits to IS and white supremacists.
There is no way to determine just how many potential IS recruits have been and will be dissuaded by the Redirect Method, there is no doubt that the program is capable of reaching millions of people.
Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have previously said that Google, along with other online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, has served as a recruiting platform for terrorists. This program will serve as an important step in the fight against the rising numbers of terrorist groups.
