Rep. Eliot Engel (D., N.Y.) said Monday that social media, especially Twitter, should be used to combat extremism to help prevent future terrorist attacks perpetrated by groups like the Islamic State.
MSNBC’s Chris Jansing asked Engel, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, what needs to be done to combat extremism in the wake of the bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend.
"Well, I think first of all, we need to figure out why these young men are becoming radicalized and how we can combat that," Engel said. "We can combat that with Twitter and trying to get social media to, first of all, get off of social media the things that radicalize these people and also have credible people who can appeal to someone who might be radicalized in a positive way on social media. So I think that, you know, we’re scratching the surface, but I think we’ve got to do a lot more."
Jansing summarized earlier comments from Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), who said that more action was required to fight extremism, not diplomacy. Engel replied that making changes to America’s immigration policy was not going to fix the problems.
Engel is not the first to cite social media as a weapon against terrorism. First Lady Michelle Obama became one of the most famous examples of using advocacy on Twitter when she sent a picture of herself with a piece of paper saying, "#BringBackOurGirls," in response to the abduction of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terror group Boko Haram. This campaign received criticism because it did not lead to the girls being freed from captivity, despite bringing more attention to the issue.