Online Extremism and Radicalisation

Today, if you log on to the internet, just how safe are you from radicalisation? Extremist groups are by no means a new phenomenon, but the internet has radically changed the way these groups operate, turbo-charging their ability to target and recruit susceptible people and advance dangerous agendas. 

And in a year when America heads to the polls, are any of our democratic elections immune to foreign interference? Already AI is learning how to write convincing newspaper articles and books, generate pictures of people that don’t exist and manipulate faces in real time.

So as technology becomes more sophisticated, how do we safeguard ourselves and our democratic institutions from this existential threat? 

RSA chief executive Matthew Taylor is joined by Julia Ebner, author of Going Dark: The Secret Lives of Extremists, and Archon Fung, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. 

Produced by Craig Templeton Smith

Brought to you by the RSA.