Google wants to fight extremism, but it needs to understand it first
Source: PBS, 7/1/2011
ASP Fellow Joshua Foust is a featured author.
By Joshua Foust
“…I disagree with Gartenstein-Ross. It was perhaps a semantic argument, but I thought the constraints faced by potential extremists — social and peer pressure, familial expectations, economic pressures, and so on — were a better way of explaining the path to violent radicalization than just looking at ideology. Gartenstein-Ross, rightly, responded that the preponderance of certain ideologues among captured jihadists, like the extremist Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, indicates that the specific ideas and belief systems promoted by extremist groups play a part in radicalization.
The challenge, and this is where Gartenstein-Ross and I left our argument, is that there are just not enough data out there to conclusively say why this person becomes radicalized. It could be ideology. It could be a longing for adventure — as SAVE seems to think…”
