Google wants Isis to be contained to dark web

Google wants to contain the Islamic State (Isis) to the dark web in order to limit the organisation's online propaganda and recruitment activities. Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, said in order to "recapture digital territory" from organised extremist groups, fear of capture must be utilised as a tool.

Extremists must learn to fear the possibility of being captured when using the internet to promote their organisations' cause, he asserted while delivering a talk on Waging a Digital Counterinsurgency at Chatham House. The event was organised to discuss online counter-terrorism methodologies that can help neutralise the Isis.

Commenting on the online operations of terrorist cells, Cohen said: "What is new is that they're operating without being pushed back in the same internet we all enjoyed. So success looks like Isis being contained to the dark web."

Cohen is leading a Google project that is currently believed to be working on developing products that will help fight oppression, according to Wired. Google is also working on developing tools to better identify and remove Isis social media accounts so as to prevent people from making contact with Daesh recruiters.

UK crackdown

The UK government is determined to collaborate with leading tech firms to ensure that online propagation of terrorism is nipped in the bud. The country's internet counter-terrorism unit has said that it removes over a 1,000 illegal, terrorism related content from the internet on a weekly basis. By June 2015, the unit, which was formed in 2010, had reportedly made 38,889 internet takedowns, ramping up the unit's total takedowns to over 100,000.

Other speakers at the Chatham House event included Rick Stengel, the US State Department's Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Shiraz Maher, senior radicalisation researcher at King's College London, Omar Saif Ghobash, UAE Ambassador to the Russian Federation and Clarissa War, senior international correspondent at CNN.