The Guardian
Police launch new campaign as number of items removed by special police unit trebles over past year
Junead Khan had viewed Isis propaganda online before being convicted of terrorism offences. Photograph: CPS/PA
British counter-terrorism officials are launching a campaign to try to drive back Islamic State’s efforts to use the internet to foster extremism. Isis has turned the internet into a frontline of its jihad, using it to spread propaganda to gain recruits and embolden its supporters. However, 300 items a day are being taken down by a special police unit.
British terrorists convicted of murder plots and attempts are known to have been inspired and even radicalised by material they have seen online.
New figures released on Friday by police indicate a big rise in extremist material online since the rise of Isis, with cyber recruiters even trying to use popular hashtags to help spread their ideology. The Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit has seen a trebling in the items it has had removed, from 17,541 in 2013 to 55,556 last year as Isis grew in potency.
This year the unit is on course to remove 100,000 items, having already taken down 26,000 pieces of internet content in the first quarter of this year. The items include footage of beheadings, bomb-making instructions and speeches urging violence.
Police are launching a new campaign encouraging internet users to report any jihadist material they come across. Officials know the items they are taking down are probably only a fraction of what is available on the web. Police say that while they scour the web for extremist material, many of their leads come from the public.
Deputy assistant commissioner Helen Ball, the senior national coordinator for counter terrorism policing, said: “The internet and social media provide many opportunities for those with extreme views to target young or vulnerable people and their methods are constantly evolving, from using new phone apps to hijacking popular hashtags in order to reach wide audiences.”
Among those inspired by extremist material to kill was Junead Khan, convicted this month of plotting to kill soldiers. Investigators found Khan, 25, from Luton, had viewed Isis propaganda, including a guide to making a suicide bomb.
The rise of Isis has dramatically increased the scale of the problem, which emerged in the UK in 2010 after a student with no previous extremist history was convicted of trying to assassinate an MP after watching extremist material on YouTube.
In that case Roshonara Choudhry stabbed Labour MP Stephen Timms as revenge for his support of the 2003 Iraq war. She said in police interviews that she had been driven to do what she did after watching material from extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Ball added: “The Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit has put considerable effort into prompting the removal of terrorist and extremist material. We know that communities are very concerned about this material – and communities defeat terrorism, which is why police and the public will continue to work together on this.”
