HOW IT WORKS
STEP 1
CONTENT IDENTIFICATION
The first step of the TCAP is the identification of terrorist content across varying tech platforms and channels in line with our Inclusion policy. The TCAP has three approaches to identify content online:
OPEN-SOURCE INTELLIGENCE (OSINT) ANALYSTS
A team of highly skilled OSINT analysts proactively trace terrorist entities to their preferred beacon platform. In turn, identifying out links that direct users to smaller content stores, terrorist operated websites, and social media platforms on which the content is hosted. Once these out links are identified they are uploaded to the TCAP via a submissions page.
AUTOMATED SCRAPERS
Once beacon platforms are identified by the OSINT team, automatic scrapers are developed to be able to automatically extract data from known suspicious channels. Once the export has been performed, the scraper is able to extract any out links identified in the data and upload them onto the TCAP.
TRUSTED FLAGGERS
Trusted flaggers are verified individuals who are able to submit content to the TCAP
STEP 2
CONTENT VERIFICATION & CLASSIFICATION
Once the content is uploaded onto the TCAP, it is verified against our Inclusions Policy and attributed to the corresponding terrorist organisation.
After content has been classified, the TCAP will have several different data attributes registered to each content item including; the date and time of submission, associated terrorist entity and the tech platform and channel where the content was detected.
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STEP 3
AUTOMATED ALERTS
Once content has been verified and classified the TCAP automatically identifies which content has been found on tech platforms registered to TCAP alerts. For platforms signed up to the TCAP, any content identified on their platform will be notified to them via an automated email alert.
The email alert contains the link to where the content can be found on their platform, the associated terrorist entity and a warning for content that is graphic in nature or contains personally identifiable information.
TCAP alerts are made on an advisory basis, it is the tech platforms decision to proceed with content moderation.
STEP 4
ARCHIVING & HASHING
The TCAP will then archive every content item to store a record for academic and human rights purposes. The TCAP archive is at present not available for access, however, in later developments, TAT will look to grant access to verified academics and researchers.
Each content item is passed through a hashing function to create an algebraic record of each content type. The TCAP shares these hashes to the GIFCT’s hash sharing consortium to support their crisis response protocol.
STEP 5
CONTINUOUS STATUS CHECKING
The TCAP continuously validates the online status of each content item to determine if the content has been taken down and calculate response time to TCAP alerts.