SXSW Panel: Muslim Extremists
Posted on March 8, 2008
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This was a panel about how regular Muslims are combatting the extremists that are using the Internet to organize Jihad. The first half was a bit of a snoozefest, (too granular about software these two guys have developed) but then things got interesting. Some of the stuff is pretty damn terrifying, and it’s amazing that we don’t know more about this, and aren’t doing more. I guess you could say that basically, we’re pretty fucked. It’s a perfect example of a few people using our own (best) technology against us. And this one has the potential to be much bigger than airplanes. One of the speakers was from the state department, and his point was interesting: Al Quiada is a brand, like any other… and it’s up to us (but more importantly, mainstream muslims) to de-ligitimize this brand. We obviously aren’t doing that great of a job at that.