WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is convening a meeting this week to discuss efforts to counter the propaganda of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) and its recruitment of Westerners to become terrorists.
The meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Justice Department involves government officials as well as dozens of representatives from advertising and social media companies and Silicon Valley. It will be followed by a reception at the White House.
The summit reflects ongoing concerns about slick ISIS propaganda that encourages disaffected young adults to join the terror group’s cause in Syria or to commit acts of violence closer to home. Officials and private sector executives have been brainstorming ways to fight that messaging, which has often spread through social media platforms such as Twitter.
The Justice Department in the last year has brought charges against dozens of people tied to support for ISIS, many of whom were drawn to online propaganda.
“Over the past year, organizations and companies across a range of industries have asked how they might contribute to efforts to counter radicalization and recruitment activities by ISIL and other violent extremists,” the Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday.
The government recognizes that the private sector has “a crucial role to play in developing creative and effective ways to undermine terrorist recruiting and counter the call to violence,” the statement said.
The meeting takes place amid an ongoing technology encryption clash that has divided the Obama administration and Silicon Valley, though a government official said the meeting had nothing to do with that topic and was planned long before the current flare-up between the Justice Department and Apple Inc. over access to a locked iPhone became public last week in a California court.
In that matter, a federal magistrate has ordered Apple to help the FBI gain access to a phone used by one of the gunmen in the December terror attack in San Bernardino. The company is expected to file a written objection on Friday.
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