Ban online terror material, says new study

Social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube are being used by terrorist groups to groom vulnerable people, and Australia and its international partners should be limiting extremist propaganda on the internet, a new study says.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) security program director Dr Carl Ungerer says terror websites have evolved from crude propaganda and bomb-making manuals to more sophisticated sites.

He said terror groups such as al-Qaeda had exploited the technology and infrastructure of global connectivity.

According to one study, there were now more than 5000 active terrorist websites worldwide, many operating from the US where free speech is protected under the constitution, he said.

A study of internet radicalisation in Southeast Asia found the terrorist presence on the internet now involved encrypted social networking sites where potential recruits were identified, groomed and radicalised in local languages.

Dr Ungerer said sophisticated English language material was deliberately aimed at vulnerable individuals in the West. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said this was radicalising children as young as 14.

He said Australia, like other western nations, had introduced new policies to counter violent extremism including policies to limit terrorist propaganda on the internet.

"But the ease of access to violent extremist material around the world and the lack of uniform legislative control means that an online approach that focuses only on soft counter-messaging will not prevent material being used for radicalisation," he said in the paper.

Dr Ungerer said the increasing sophistication and speed of transmission provided by the internet, including on mobile devices, would continue to fuel global terrorist propaganda.

And as the internet became available to more users in more countries, the terrorist message would become available in regions previously believed immune.

Social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube are now widely used by terrorist groups and supporters to incite violence and to connect instantly to wider audiences, he said.

"In terms of counter-terrorism policy, there's now a strong case to be made to ban all al-Qaeda material online and to take down all terrorist websites wherever they appear," he said.

"Such actions would need to be co-ordinated among like-minded countries and would require the co-operation of telecommunications companies and internet service providers."

Dr Ungerer said there was no expectation that this material would not find its way onto other websites.

But the simple act of removing it every time it appeared would complicate al-Qaeda's propaganda campaign, increase its costs of doing business, and, ultimately, send a message that violent extremist material was abhorrent in all its forms.

"The growing risks of internet radicalisation, especially among vulnerable youth in the West, now outweigh both the argument of security agencies in favour of monitoring online material for intelligence purposes, and the civil libertarian argument concerning free speech," he said.

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