How Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other tech giants let their work on domestic terrorism threats, like QAnon, lag behind foreign threats, like ISIS
On a Friday in August 2017 — years before a mob of armed and very-online extremists took over the U.S. Capitol — a young Black woman … Tweets: @issielapowsky , @wexler , @issielapowsky , @angelsdiaz_ , @muslimadvocates , @danielmalmer , @tonyserrata , @oneunderscore__ , @dwertime , @ashkenaz89 , @trentonjkennedy , @akinunver , @evelyndouek , @craignewmark , @ryan_b_greer , @justinhendrix , and @mcwm Tweets: Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : YouTube was the only tech co in this story that wouldn't let me talk to anyone on the record. Their spox did however ask me why I was asking questions about YouTube's election policies when my story was supposed to be about domestic extremism........... https://www.protocol.com/... Nu Wexler / @wexler : Talked w/ @issielapowsky & @protocol about the politics of moderating domestic extremist content during the Trump Administration. Take down too much and you'll get summoned to a Congressional hearing on political bias. https://www.protocol.com/... https://twitter.com/... Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : NEW: Big Tech spent years banishing ISIS from their platforms, while domestic violent extremism festered and grew. Then came the Capitol riot. The inside story of why tech's fight against domestic threats lagged behind its fight against foreign ones. https://www.protocol.com/... @angelsdiaz_ : This piece is well worth the investment, but I think the foreign vs. domestic framing misses the ongoing disparate impact of content moderation on communities of color, sex workers, LGBTQ communities, and religious minorities. https://www.protocol.com/... Muslim Advocates / @muslimadvocates : Right-wing white nationalist hate has been a problem long before the Capitol riot. We have warned Facebook for years that white nationalist militias were using their event pages to threaten American Muslims. https://muslimadvocates.org/ ... Daniel Malmer / @danielmalmer : Great read. “'Why are they so good at targeting you with content that's consistent with your prior engagement, but somehow when it comes to harm, they become bumbling idiots?' asked Farid, who remains dubious of Big Tech's efforts to control violent extremists.” https://twitter.com/... Antonio Serrata / @tonyserrata : @issielapowsky @CindyOtis_ Very telling, it shows they're absolutely capable technically to be able to address the violent extremism narratives and yet with the domestic variety they chose not to. And yes it's a choice. Tech means were always there. Ben Collins / @oneunderscore__ : “Nobody's going to have a hearing if a platform takes down 1,000 ISIS accounts. But they might have a hearing if you take down 1,000 QAnon accounts.” https://www.protocol.com/... @dwertime : Read this can't-miss piece from @issielapowsky on how big tech has (and hasn't) handled domestic extremism, full of fly-on-the-wall details: https://www.protocol.com/... Samantha Kutner / @ashkenaz89 : Extremists today come wrapped in the American flag & claim to champion free speech. They mass report their perceived opposition while spreading radicalizing conspiracy theories to justify targeted harassment against them. Significant progress. Lots more work to be done. https://twitter.com/... Trenton Kennedy / @trentonjkennedy : “Insight from government about what's happening off of Twitter is a really important part of making sure our policies keep pace with what's happening.” — @nickpickles More in @protocol on our evolving work and our obligation to keep people safe. 👇🏼https://www.protocol. com/ ... Akin Unver / @akinunver : Sorry but big tech performance against ISIS hasn't been that great either. https://www.protocol.com/... Evelyn Douek / @evelyndouek : When I wrote that in the distant past of 14 months ago, I was nervous making the argument (as a foreigner!) that foreign speech was being scapegoated. It holds up though! And although it gets more attention now, many of the problems I discuss with defining the category remain Craig Newmark / @craignewmark : (really good re how hard it is to counter domestic disinformation and terrorism via @issielapowsky) Tech spent years fighting foreign terrorists. Then came the Capitol riot. https://www.protocol.com/... Ryan B. Greer / @ryan_b_greer : “I do think things are trending up. There are a lot of people working to solve these challenges. We are making some headway.” I spoke about tech companies and countering online extremism to @issielapowsky for @protocol https://www.protocol.com/... Justin Hendrix / @justinhendrix : “Why are they so good at targeting you with content that's consistent with your prior engagement, but somehow when it comes to harm, they become bumbling idiots?” wonders Hany Farid pointedly in this substantial piece by @issielapowsky on tech & extremism. https://www.protocol.com/... Mike Murphy / @mcwm : Huge report from @issielapowsky today: Tech spent years fighting foreign terrorists. The domestic ones? “Nobody's going to have a hearing if a platform takes down 1,000 ISIS accounts. But they might have a hearing if you take down 1,000 QAnon accounts.” https://www.protocol.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Protocol's investigation lands four months after the Capitol attack ignited an ethics fight among extremism researchers, and it supplies the missing backstory to that moment: the moderation machinery Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube spent years building was tuned to banish foreign terrorist content like ISIS material, while domestic movements such as QAnon grew with far less dedicated staffing or policy attention.
The gap wasn't invisible at the time. Reporting as early as 2018 documented online conspiracy theories spilling into physical-world violence, and Facebook's own leadership had shelved internal research on the platform's polarizing effects (per sources and documents reported by the Wall Street Journal) — meaning the companies had signal they chose not to convert into domestic-extremism policy.
First-order effects
- Facebook, Twitter and Google face immediate pressure to reallocate trust-and-safety resources and policy teams from foreign-terror enforcement toward domestic violent extremism — the exact redefinition of scope that the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, Facebook-backed and ISIS-focused, is now being pressed to address (as Erin Saltman discussed).
- YouTube's refusal to put anyone on the record about its election and moderation policies leaves it the least accountable of the named platforms, inviting sharper external scrutiny than peers who engaged with the investigation.
Second-order effects
- Government scrutiny shifts from platform compliance on ISIS takedowns to domestic radicalization pathways: DHS has already documented American extremists using TikTok for recruitment and 'tactical guidance' ahead of January 6, so platforms now answer to counterterrorism expectations they never built their systems for.
- Crowdsourced identification efforts like those debated after the Capitol attack become a substitute enforcement layer where official policy lags, forcing platforms to choose between embracing researcher collaboration and defending users against 'ethical doxxing.'
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, moderation infrastructure stops being organized around threat origin (foreign vs. domestic) and gets rebuilt around threat behavior — a structural change that would require shared taxonomies across companies and, absent voluntary action, invites congressional mandates defining what counts as extremism.
- The episode cements a longer-term dynamic in which platforms' internal research on their own harms becomes evidence regulators and journalists treat as primary-source material, raising the cost of shelving inconvenient findings.
The trend: Platform trust-and-safety is migrating from a foreign-terrorism template toward treating domestic extremist movements as a first-class enforcement category, with government and researchers filling gaps the companies left open.