Atlantic Council: Fighting online extremism in ‘the Klan den of the twenty-first century’
By: Integrity First For America News Coverage
IFA Executive Director Amy Spitalnick participated in a panel at the Atlantic Council's 360/Open Summit on fighting extremism online:
From its earliest days, the internet was seen as a bastion for free speech and global education. But few foresaw that social media would transform it into “the [Ku Klux] Klan den of the twenty-first century” as well, as Amy Spitalnick, executive director of the nonprofit Integrity First for America, declared Wednesday during a 360/Open Summit panel on fighting extremism moderated by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab Director Graham Brookie.
That observation set the tone for a discussion of the radical new reality of online extremism with four leading experts: Spitalnick; Mary McCord, executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University; Nicholas Rasmussen, executive director of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism; and Rachel Gillum, a visiting national security scholar at Stanford University.
The January 6 attack on the US Capitol underscored the intense threat of online extremism following a year in which physical violence seemed uniquely fed by pixelated propaganda. Below are some of the panel’s key takeaways on how civil society groups, law enforcement, and policymakers are assessing and combating the threat...
Read the full Atlantic Council blog post and watch the panel here.