Keynote Speaker: The Preventing Violent Extremism Forum

Good morning – As Founder and President of The ‘MPOWER Project – I’d like to begin by extending a warm welcome to all of you here today – distinguished guests, friends and colleagues.  On behalf of our team and the Counter Extremism Project. We are delighted to welcome attendees today from 15 countries and representation from government, various NGOs, marketing, academia, law enforcement, military, journalism, data science and technology. What a wonderful meeting of the minds today is going to be.

First off, I want to set the stage for partnership as one of the core goals coming out of today’s Forum – I’d like to extend a warm thank you to our Partner and funding organization, Counter Extremism Project as well as The Permanent Missions of Norway and Jordan.

David Ibsen and his team at The Counter Extremism Project have been true supporters, advisors and partners since nearly the inception of The ‘MPOWER Project when I founded the organization in spring 2017.  It has been a true pleasure getting to know and work with CEP’s team over the last year and a half. I credit much of our success and rapid growth to their organizational tutelage. We are truly blessed to have friends like you.

To the Permanent Missions of Norway and Jordan – Thank you for your partnership and continued support, which started with a single invitation to speak at The Group of Friends of Preventing Violent Extremism, a group of 40+ UN member states that both Missions co-chair. Your shared vision for this event has been invaluable, and I look forward to many future collaboration opportunities.

Secondly, I want to underscore the importance of bringing a range of cross-sector, multi-disciplinary voices to the table to promote a more inclusive, nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the issues at play. Here today, we’ve got over 100 different organizations represented.

Third and perhaps most importantly, today is about promoting and extending conversation around a more human-centric, preventative approach to how we understand violent extremism.

As some of you may know, I have a rather untraditional background to be standing before you now – I have spent the past 15+ years in brand marketing and advertising. In my final days of magazine publishing after over a decade at companies like Time, Inc. And Conde Nast, I saw personally the way that digital media, emerging tech platforms and big data changed and continues to change the way that marketers engage with and ultimately win loyalty from consumers.  Today the industry stands divided in many ways between the nexus of content development and targeted distribution, often known as programmatic media.

One of my goals in completing my graduate studies at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs was to find a way to leverage my professional skills within an important policy area that I cared about.

Contemporary terrorist organizations and other social recruitment entities like the alt-right have developed inspirational and compelling narratives through sophisticated media, new technology and propagandist content.  Paramount to the effectiveness of these tactics are the proliferation of ideology and extremist messaging used to recruit and inspire globally. Undermining and, ultimately, eradicating extremist ideology online remains a foremost challenge as new ideologies take root and seek to exploit both the security weakness of technology and media platforms as well as the human insecurities created and exacerbated by social media and a more diffusely connected society at large.

Similar to the way that some of our most iconic brands have done from the halls of Madison Avenue, groups promoting recruitment to violent extremist ideology have become sophisticated digital marketers – adept at building brand value, engaging their audiences and inciting action.

Omar Mateen, responsible for the deaths of 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Dylan Roof, convicted in the mass murder of nine at a church in Charleston and Nikolas Cruz, a troubled young man with a history of isolation and propensity for violence killed 17 in yet another school shooting – these individuals are all examples of a growing trend of young men in western countries who are recruited and display their allegiance for violent ideologies almost exclusively online. These young men are separated by motivation, family ties and often miles of ocean, yet they chose parallel paths to notoriety through acts of violence against innocent civilians. Self radicalized individuals around the world have turned to violence in support of extremist ideology, making this a truly global issue.

Once the death toll is finalized and investigation begins, it becomes clear that the internet and in particular, social media, played a key role in their descent to violence in nearly every instance.  With red flags often prominently visible on various social media platforms and through online conversations. Further evident is that behind these acts lie a series of nuanced psychologies affecting each of their paths to destruction and laying the groundwork for the push/pull factors that will influence them, ultimately making violence a choice option.

The ‘MPOWER Project is a young non-for-profit, non-partisan NGO that is a hybrid creative and strategic communications agency and think tank with the goal of “out-branding” social and digital recruitment to violence online using research-backed brand marketing strategies and tactics.  

The name ‘MPOWER was derived in combination from the words, “I’m Power,” “My Power” and “Empower.” We use an extensive mixed method approach to analyzing primary and secondary research, which informs campaign and audience development, similar to the way brand marketers would derive insights about their audiences.  

Unlike traditional counter messaging campaign development, which uses basic demographic information such as male/female, age, ethnicity, religion, geo-targeting – The ‘MPOWER Project seeks to understand each audience for every campaign by understanding the motivations, influencers, challenges and personal value system of our audience so that we can present them with the most relevant and impactful message possible.  

Using the marketing framework of upper funnel vs. lower funnel tactics, we have identified the headspace that would even allow someone to be open to a recruitment ideology, generally, pre-exposure to any kind of recruitment narrative.  This is where we believe messaging is most impactful.

We have coined this audience theory – Identity Vulnerability – a cognitive and emotional state of mind that occurs prior to awareness and attachment to destructive ideology and allows an individual to become more easily manipulated by external influence and instigators that threaten and indicate susceptibility to non-mainstream ideology.  Attachment to a new narrative in this state of mind can change an individual’s perception, personal qualities, beliefs and social ties.

Individuals in this state exhibit a high need for cognitive closure or dislike of ambiguity, a quest for personal significance and the need to belong.  

They display high rejection sensitivity and binary, black and white thinking, which can easily translate into “them vs. me.” Often times these individuals are ostracized or socially marginalized in some way, either due to institutionalized prejudice or their own alienating behaviors. These individuals actively seek narratives that validate their perceived grievances and allow them to regain a sense of empowerment and control over their own destiny.  They seek to be the “hero” of their personal story and to escape feelings of insignificance characterizing their current situation. Vulnerable individuals can have greater susceptibility to extremist recruitment of all varieties, which give them a sense of belonging and validation and create perceived structure, order and significance in their lives.

Individuals in this state of mind are at a crossroads where they are particularly vulnerable to messaging, which is how the Internet and Social Media can play such active, instigating roles in shaping their outlook. By understanding the mindset, key challenges and motivations of this individual, The ‘MPOWER Project seeks to present an alternative, significance-promoting “brand” or ‘ideology” – if you will – to create connection, plant seeds of doubt and introduce ambiguity.

The ‘MPOWER Project believes that Identity Vulnerability serves as the baseline through which motivators to violence of all forms – to self and to others – should be considered, with other more individual and localized grievances layered on from there.

You can read more about this audience theory in our first official report, which was distributed upon check-in – along with our research methods and key insights. Our framework is built around a human-centric approach that seeks to inoculate against radical ideology before it even takes root, in an effort to subvert violence before it is even a conscious option.This is a time when someone is seeking connection with something and when messaging can be most influential in shaping their path forward.   

The important thing to note is that this audience theory will serve as the basis for any campaign that we work on, but each campaign will be informed by its own research and audience insights survey process to capture individualized circumstantial and local nuance.

Christian Picciolini, who wasn’t able to be here today, will feature in a mini doc conversation filmed by The ‘MPOWER Project at lunch.  For those of you who aren’t familiar, Christian is a Former skinhead living in the midwest who was recruited and radicalized just prior to his freshman year of high school.  He recalls the rhetoric that fueled his identity crisis and says in his book – “If Young People Don’t Find Their Purpose Through Positive Means, a Purpose Will Find Them.”

Today, we have such an excellent lineup of experts to hear from as well as an audience coming from such diverse backgrounds and perspective.  I would like to challenge everyone here to be open to considering these issues in a new and perhaps different way and to find the commonalities and connection points within the points of view that are sure to rise to the surface. The goal coming out of today would be to present new and innovative practices and approaches to program design and policy going forward, grounded in a human-centric preventative approach.

Thank you.