FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE+: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS IMPACT DIGITAL TERRORISM AND HATE

June 18, 2009

 
WHAT:  

FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE+:  HOW SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLETS IMPACT DIGITAL TERRORISM AND HATE
Release of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s CD Rom Report

WHEN:   

Thursday, June 18, 2009, 11:00 a.m.

WHERE:

Museum of Tolerance, 9786 West Pico Boulevard (corner Pico and Roxbury Drive), Los Angeles.

The recent arrests in the tragic murders of Stephen Tyrone Jones at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Dr. George Tiller at his Kansas church uncovered more evidence of how viral hate online incubates, empowers and emboldens violent bigots. With over one and a half billion users (almost one quarter of the world’s population), the Internet is the prime means of communication and marketing in the world. The Internet’s unprecedented global reach and scope combined with the difficulty in monitoring and tracing communications make it the prime tool for extremists and terrorists. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has been monitoring these developments for over a decade through its Digital Terrorism and Hate Project.
At a press briefing on Thursday June 18, at 11:00 a.m., the Wiesenthal Center will present Facebook, YouTube +: How Social Media Outlets Impact Digital Terrorism and Hate, a report that confirms again that as the Internet has grown, the escalation of extremist sites has kept pace in number and in technological sophistication especially with developments in dynamic new social networking services. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube have both seen a huge proliferation of extremist use with the greatest increase coming from overseas, particularly Europe and the Middle East. The CD-ROM report, released annually, is designed to assist law enforcement, public officials, educators, parents and the news media to better grasp the scope of hate. The report is used by the FBI, Homeland Security, military officials, hate crime units and joint terrorism taskforces in the U.S. as well as Canada and Europe.

Participants: Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Wiesenthal Center and a pioneer in tracking digital hate on the Internet; Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Global Communications, Marketing, and Public Policy for Facebook; and Brian Cuban, a Dallas attorney who sparked a campaign calling on Facebook to remove Holocaust denial groups from its site.

For more information and/or to RSVP, contact the Wiesenthal Center’s Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.

Click here to download the Center's report...

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).