Lord West of Spithead – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord West of Spithead on 2015-11-17.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether any work is underway to undermine Islamic State’s propaganda on social media, and how much money has been allocated to that work.

Lord Bates

Extremist and terrorist organisations such as Da’esh use social media and other internet tools to spread fear, disseminate propaganda and persuade individuals to join their groups and support their aims.

The Government’s Prevent strategy is focused on preventing people from being drawn into terrorism by challenging the terrorists’ ideology and supporting those vulnerable to its appeal.

As part of Prevent, our dedicated police unit supports industry to remove, on average, 1,000 pieces of terrorist-related internet content per week. The Research, Information and Communication Unit (RICU) also helps build the capacity of civil society groups to confront and challenge the ideology of terrorism and extremism. By bringing civil society groups together with communications professionals and industry experts, it has provided them with advice and support, production capabilities, public relations expertise and social media training.

British Muslim communities are playing a leading role in the fight against Da’esh’s poisonous narrative. This work, which allows them to share their alternative message more widely, is specifically aimed at undermining Da’esh’s propaganda.

The threat of Da’esh is global and RICU is working closely with international partners and others to develop similar approaches.

The Prevent programme has been allocated £65 million for the 2015/2016 financial year.