UK To Train Pro-West Islamic Groups To Game Google

Hugh Pickens writes "The British government's Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism (OSCT), a 200-strong Home Office unit created 18 months ago, has said in meetings it wants to 'flood the internet' with 'positive' interpretations of Islam and plans to train government-approved groups in search engine optimization techniques, which it is hoped will boost their profile online and battle radicalization. A Home Office spokesman confirmed search engine optimization training is part of the government's anti-radicalization strategy. 'In order to support mainstream voices, we work with local partners to help develop their communication, representational and leadership skills. This support could include media training, which can help make their voices heard more widely, and support the development of skills which allow communities to be more effective in debate.' However the effectiveness of search engine optimization in reducing traffic to extremist websites has been dismissed by academics. A report produced by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) said young Muslims were much more likely to be directed to extremist material online by web forums and offline associates than by Google or other search engines. 'Tweaking the results for supposedly extremist terms would be largely ineffectual, not least because it is unlikely that any but the most callow wannabe terrorist would use a mainstream search engine to find banned material.'"

Comments

Re:Islam, eh?

[h4rm0ny]

I think it's a pretty awful one on the part of the UK government. The Google manipulation might be new, but the New Labour government has been funding and supporting *approved* versions of Islam for quite a while. Why is this a bad thing? First and foremost, it is NOT the government's job to be promoting any particular religion to anyone. Ever. It is not where I want my tax money going and even if I did want to support a particular religion, the ethical thing to do would be for me to support it directly, not have a supposedly democratic government do it.

Secondly, this is domestically counter-productive to their actual aims. A religion or culture needs to change from the inside. Quite frankly, the government's stamp of approval on a religious person does nothing to lend them credibility and a lot to undermine it. If someone is trying to persuade you that they can explain God's words to you, then the last thing that will help is our despised UK government, responsible for uncounted muslim deaths, overtly manipulating you in that direction.

Thirdly, this sort of behaviour is pretty bad internationally across the muslim world. It's bad enough when a country invades a country and plunders its oil, but it might be even worse when you can see it actively trying to change the beliefs of your children to accord with a different version of your religion that suits it better.

Bad, bad, bad.