Social media firms warned of new type of online extremism at Senate hearing

Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well as lawmakers, urged to prepare for foreign actors using US citizens to carry out violence

Social media companies and lawmakers have been urged to prepare for a looming type of extremism born from foreign actors mobilising US citizens to carry out violent acts in their homeland.

Speaking during a Senate committee hearing on extremist propaganda and social media, Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, warned of foreign countries using the kinds of persuasive techniques previously used to recruit Islamist terrorists to manipulate political discourse and mobilise unwitting Americans to attack specific targets.