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Source: https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspiring-isis-recruits/
Google's Plan to Stop Aspiring ISIS Recruits
(Wired) Andy Greenberg - Jigsaw, the Google-owned tech incubator and think tank, has been developing a new program using a combination of Google's search advertising algorithms and YouTube's video platform to target aspiring ISIS recruits and dissuade them from joining its cult of violence. The program, called the Redirect Method, places advertising alongside results for any keywords and phrases that people attracted to ISIS commonly search for. Those ads link to Arabic- and English-language YouTube channels that pull together preexisting videos to undo ISIS brainwashing - clips like testimonials from former extremists, imams denouncing ISIS' corruption of Islam, and clips from inside the group's dysfunctional caliphate in Syria and Iraq. "The Redirect Method is at its heart a targeted advertising campaign," said Yasmin Green, Jigsaw's head of research and development. "Let's take these individuals who are vulnerable to ISIS' recruitment messaging and instead show them information that refutes it." In a two-month pilot project early this year, more than 300,000 people were drawn to the anti-ISIS YouTube channels.