In 2007, when Twitter was a year young and WhatsApp was still two years away, I introduced a bill that would have set up a national commission to study the new ways that terror groups were reaching the lost, disaffected and psychopathic. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 404 to 6, before it was misconstrued by outside groups and mothballed by the Senate. 

We simply must do better. Political campaigns have been transformed by the power to micro-target voters; that skill set needs to be brought to bear for countermessaging. Such efforts could allow us to reach someone such as “Jihad Jane,” whose MySpace posts included statements such as “I support all the Mujahideen.” She didn’t fit the typical terror profile, and the good news is we found her before she could act. Imagine if searching for beheading videos brought up ads for mainstream spiritual resources in the searcher’s community; imagine if jihadist Twitter bubbles were punctured by targeted messages from responsible religious authorities. The same approach drives a multibillion-dollar digital ad economy, dominated by firms that know you — statistically — better than your mother does. Google, Facebook and Twitter work with clients in every space, including both political parties, to shape maximally persuasive campaigns that reach people where they are. By partnering with tech firms, there’s no reason we can’t narrowcast more effectively than our enemies.
We can do it without compromising privacy or civil liberties more than a pop-up ad does. And we can do it for far less than it costs to hire federal workers to tweet all day.

Smart, subtle partnership will be the key. Already, efforts such as the Network Against Violent Extremism, a Google Ideas effort, are connecting the voices that can speak credibly on these issues: ex-jihadists, former radicals, survivors of extremist violence. When top-down government approaches are flawed, then bottom-up, grassroots organizing is an obvious next try. The government still has skin in the game — dollars and cents, and, more important, convening power and information-sharing — that can make these public-private partnerships work. But it needs to lead from behind. Get religious leaders, political consultants and tech firms in the same room, then step back. This is a community effort and an American effort — the feds aren’t the right face for it.

Today our war for hearts and minds is fought online, not in print; the key expertise isn’t centered in Washington. As the techies say, there has to be an app for that.