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Extremism and the net
12-08-2009
by Ralph Averbuch
Shutting out views on the republican fringe from YouTube or Facebook will change neither hearts nor minds on the ground.
Recent reports that Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson is to meet with YouTube to discuss removing dissident republican material from its website is perhaps missing the point. This is simply a modern-day version of shooting the messenger and, in all likelihood, gives more fuel to a minor grouping on the fringes of the republican movement than it deserves. Surely such material, by its very nature, will only be sought out by those already sympathetic to the violent aims of the likes of the Continuity or Real IRA? It might be argued that spending time and effort trying to suppress this material will also be fruitless as it will inevitably pop up somewhere else on the net. If there were any doubt about this we need only look to the regular reappearance of Jihadi sites supporting the armed fight in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Donaldson might better spend his time talking to his moderate republican counterparts and working with these communities in the real world, in order to ensure there's little appetite or sympathy for a return to the violence of the past.
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