Facebook has an innovative new plan to counter terrorist propaganda online -- free advertising for users who speak out against it.
Dubbed "Counter Speech", the social network is seeking those who use their Facebook platform to discredit extremist views, whether it's by use of text posts, images or video content. Those whose work is seen to dismantle propaganda will be rewarded with ad credits worth up to $1,000 (£691), helping them spread their reach even further.
However, Counter Speech doesn't appear to be a program that users can apply to, but rather one where Facebook itself seeks out worthy candidates. One of the first recipients has been comedian Arbi el Ayachi, whose short videos counter western stereotypes of Muslims and Islam.
The plan has been brewing in the background for a while. Monika Bickert, Facebook's head of global policy management, put the plan together in December 2015, reports The Wall Street Journal. Making anti-terrorism content more visible on Facebook has since become a concern at the company's highest levels, with CEO Sheryl Sandberg saying at Davos last month that a wave of positivity and goodwill could deter radicalisation and terrorist recruitment online.
A similar ad-powered campaign has been rolled out in conjunction with the US State Department and 45 universities around the world, challenging classes to come up with anti-radicalisation messages with $2000 (£1382) budgets and $200 (£138) ad credits. Other measures to counter terrorist speech on Facebook have included working with the London-basedInstitute for Strategic Dialogue to put former members of right wing and extremist groups in contact with current members using fake profiles, and building communication channels to facilitate interventions.
How long Facebook plans to run its Counter Speech program, or how it plans to grow it, aren't clear. However, some growth will definitely be needed for it to have a significant impact -- UK cross-party think tank Demos found that in October 2015, there were 25,522 posts on populist right-wing pages, compared with just 2,364 on what could be considered counter speech pages.
The need to combat online extremism, hate speech, and terrorist recruitment online has been increasingly placed in the spotlight in recent months, and not just through Facebook. In January, Google said that Daesh (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Islamic State) must be "contained to the dark web", while representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter insisted to UK MPs that they arededicated to stopping online crime, with a particular focus on counter terrorism efforts.
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