Facebook Is Ramping Up its Counterterrorism Strategy

Social media is trying to stamp out its terrorism problem. Twitter has become bullish on deleting terrorist accounts in recent months, and now it seems Facebook is ramping up its strategy to prune extremists from its platform.

The world’s largest social network has posted a job description on its site for at least one Counterterrorism Researcher, whose job will entail figuring out how terrorists are using the social media site.

“The candidate will be responsible for helping drive our efforts around identifying the latest tools, tactics, and infrastructure used by terrorist actors as they affect Facebook and its ecosystems to better defend against and disrupt these threats,” the posting says.

Facebook has in the past quickly punished those with suspected terrorist ties, but still relies largely on users to report suspicious or terrorist activity. “If it’s the leader of Boko Haram and he wants to post pictures of his two-year-old and some kittens, that would not be allowed,” Facebook’s head of global policy management Monika Bickert told the Wall Street Journal.

In September, Facebook joined with the Israeli government to take down what that government sees as terrorist content, after the Israeli police minister accused Facebook of enabling violence by Palestinians earlier this year. A $1 billion lawsuit has also been against Facebook this year by Israeli and U.S. lawyers, claiming the social network allowed Hamas to conduct an attack that left five Americans dead.

Upon announcing the September partnership, Facebook claims to have taken down 95 percent of the content flagged by the Israeli government.

Facebook was not immediately available for comment.