October 2022 Update

The TCAP newsletter provides updates on the month's development of the platform, key events such as our monthly office hours, and the TCAP statistics

Our highlights:

  • This month, we expanded the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP)'s Inclusion Policy to include additional material associated with individual attack perpetrators. This includes the 2022 Bratislava attack perpetrator's manifesto and the 2019 Halle attack perpetrator's livestream and manifesto. These additions are based on the classification of this content as "objectionable" by the New Zealand Classification Office. We will now alert tech companies to this content when we find it on their platforms.

  • Tech Against Terrorism was recognised in the Delhi Declaration issued by the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee on 29 October 2022. Tech Against Terrorism attended the special meeting organised by UN CTED, highlighting emerging trends in terrorist use of the internet and the work of the TCAP in tackling this threat. You can read more about the Delhi Declaration here.

  • This month (01.09-30.09) the TCAP identified 877 URLs containing terrorist content and sent 565 alerts to 24 tech companies. 74% of this content is now offline.

  • Don't forget to sign up to our TCAP Office Hours next month! If you can't make this session and would like to access a recording of this session or past Office Hours, get in touch at [email protected] or you can request a copy here.

The TCAP Statistics

The TCAP statistics detail the number of automated terrorist content alerts we have sent. To reiterate, the TCAP alerts tech companies when we find terrorist content on their platforms. With terrorist content, we mean official content produced by one of the terrorist groups included in the first version of the TCAP, based on our Inclusion Policy. This entails that the TCAP identifies terrorist content, after which we verify whether that content falls within our scope before alerting tech platforms.

For weekly TCAP statistics, please see our Twitter, @TCAPAlerts.

The following graph shows our metrics for the month of October, as well as our total statistics since the start of TCAP alerts in November 2020.

October stats.png

Automated Terrorist Content Alerts

Automated Terrorist Content Alerts

The TCAP identifies, collects, verifies, archives, processes, and alerts terrorist content.

Analysis

October Submissions by Terrorist Entity

October submissions by terrorist entity.png

  • Islamic State and al-Shabaab were the most active throughout October with consistent Islamic State propaganda output and high volume batches of al-Shabaab videos across the month.

  • Tech Against Terrorism responded to the 12 October 2022 Bratislava shooting by identifying, verifying and alerting copies of the perpetrators' manifesto. The attacker shared links on social media to file-sharing platforms hosting his manifesto. Since the attack, the manifesto has been re-uploaded by far-right support networks on a wider variety of platforms.

  • Tech Against Terrorism added the Bratislava attack perpetrator to the TCAP on 19 October 2022. Since then, we have identified 5 copies and sent 5 alerts to 2 different tech platforms. This is in addition to those our open-source intelligence (OSINT) team alerted manually in the aftermath of the attack.

October Submissions by Platform Type

October submissions by platform type.png

  • In October, 526 URLs identified and verified in the TCAP were linked to file-sharing sites representing 59.9% of all links. This displays a preference for using file-sharing platforms to host content.

  • This pattern in October reflects a long-term trend by violent islamist groups, who rely on the exploitation of file-sharing platforms to disseminate their propaganda. Violent far-right extremists have used file-sharing sites less often. However, there is a pattern of hosting propaganda on file-sharing platforms by perpetrators of attacks. The Bratislava attack perpetrator hosted his manifesto on six different file-sharing sites.

What’s Next:

  • The end of November marks the two-year anniversary of the TCAP! To celebrate, we will be releasing a special edition of the TCAP newsletter, which will include statistics, policy and development updates, as well as in-depth analysis of TCAP data on terrorist and violent extremist exploitation of the internet over the past year.

  • The first year of the TCAP expansion will cover archiving and classifying terrorist content to provide academics with a centralised knowledge base to inform counter-terrorism research. We're thinking through ways to receive input from lawyers, academics, tech platforms, and civil society at the onset of Phase II of the TCAP to ensure the archive is developed to effectively support both academics and tech platforms whilst respecting human rights and the rule of law. Watch this space for further details.

  • We are expanding our Inclusion Policy! Over the coming months, we will announce which terrorist entities we will start including in the TCAP, based on the legal designation of terrorist entities by democratic governments and supranational institutions. Keep an eye out for upcoming announcements and blogposts on each new inclusion.