Homeland Security launches new training course to counter online terrorist activities

The Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Task Force has launched an online training course designed to educate social media companies about how terrorists may seek to exploit their platforms.

The training course, called “Countering Terrorists Exploitation of Social Media and the Internet,” was presented to members of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) this week.

With 300 hours of content uploaded to content service platforms every minute, it is a challenge for companies to identify and remove or block terrorist content, especially smaller companies with limited resources. The training examines the online activities of ISIS, al‑Qa’ida, and these two groups’ supporters, as well as White Supremacist Extremists.

This narrated course includes videos and images of official and unofficial terrorist media products along with quizzes to test knowledge. The course also highlights initiatives where governments and industry have worked either together or independently to counter this threat. Significant progress has already been made to date in countering terrorist exploitation of social media and the internet. This section will encourage additional thinking about how to continue collaboration on this issue.

Companies interested in the training program can learn more or sign up at Tech Against Terrorism’s Knowledge Sharing Platform.