Breaking The Code of Extremism: Center for Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism Partners with Spectrum Labs to Identify the Coded Languages of Online Terrorism

SAN FRANCISCO and MONTEREY, Calif., June 2, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism (CTEC) today announced that it is partnering with Spectrum Labs to help its surveillance and understanding of how terrorists communicate online via coded phrases and underserved languages. Toxic and extremist content online spans national and linguistic boundaries, and the partnership between CTEC and Spectrum will improve detection, monitoring, and enforcement in many languages.

CTEC's researchers have years of experience in researching how extremists use language for recruitment, radicalization, identity-creation, and enforcement evasion. "Spectrum Labs understands the complexity and nuance involved in detecting and responding to violent and extremist speech online," CTEC's Digital Research Lead Alex Newhouse said. "We're enthusiastic about lending our linguistic expertise in extremism to help Spectrum's mission to increase awareness of toxic behavior detection across languages."

The collaboration has implications for transnational movements globally, Newhouse added. "We have seen American extremists use other languages, or idiomatic words in those languages, to hide from content moderation. Extremist terms that emerge in English-speaking communities are also often picked up and modified in other languages. For example, we have found at least 14 different Russian-language variations of the term 'ZOG' (Zionist Occupied Government). In addition, we are monitoring the emergence of anti-'deep state' and QAnon-affiliated terms in Spanish, as 'la controla el estado profundo.' This is happening everywhere."

"Spectrum Labs was built from day one to understand context and nuance across multiple languages, because social platforms draw their users from across the globe. While we currently work in nearly 50 languages, this partnership is an opportunity to finetune our dataset to prevent extremists' exploits of gaps in knowledge of other languages -- including idioms from other cultures -- to organize and amplify hate, violence, and terrorism," noted Justin Davis, Spectrum Labs CEO.

"There is such synergy between our two teams and missions of making the world safer. We couldn't be more proud or excited to partner with CTEC. Together, we hope to shine a light on how extremists organize more or less in plain sight, to detect toxic behaviors before they reach a broader audience," Davis said.

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About CTEC
The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) is a research center at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA. It works to stay at the cutting edge of terrorism research while teaching students practical skills in analysis and technology. Using mixed-methods analysis, CTEC investigates topics including hateful and violent speech online, radicalization pathways networks, terrorism financing, and countering violent extremism.

About Spectrum Labs                                        
Founded in 2016, Spectrum Labs' Contextual AI platform helps online communities recognize and respond to toxic behaviors — like radicalization, sexual grooming, harassment and cyberbullying — in real time, across languages, platform and content types. Spectrum is based in San Francisco, California. For more information, visit: getspectrum.io

SOURCE Spectrum Labs