US State Department adopting social media to counter Al-Qaeda propaganda

The State Department unveiled that it is widely employing social media as a method to counter online violent extremism from Al-Qaeda and others.

Buried in an intelligence report, the government said that the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC), established in 2011, produced more than 10,000 online postings globally in 2013, some of which included one of 138 government-produced videos.

"CSCC's programs draw on a full range of intelligence information and analysis for context and feedback. CSCC counters terrorist propaganda in the social media environment on a daily basis, contesting space where AQ and its supporters formerly had free rein. CSCC communications have provoked defensive responses from violent extremists on many of the 249 most popular extremist websites and forums as well as on social media," said the document, Country Reports on Terrorism 2013. The paper also said that in 2013, "violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media with mixed results."