Introduction
Blockchain allows users to preserve unique art, games and photographs. One of the famous examples is the art collection of Beeple, who sold one piece called ‘Everydays: the First 5000 Days’ (2021) for a record $69.3 million. Islamic extremism is now getting a boost from blockchain, which allows extremists to create and preserve extremist artifacts indefinitely, potentially inspiring future pseudo-religious extremist generations. These items are transferable, increasing in sentimentality over time. What if Islamic extremists seize the technological opening of blockchain to create artifacts that inspire further generations of extremism? This insight examines the pseudo-religious sentimentalism of Islamic extremism, expressed through their objects on the blockchain, and questions how such objects will increase extremist appeal and influence individual behavior, and how to mitigate this unique threat. This insight focuses specifically on the Islamic extremist content on blockchain made available by Open seathe world’s largest online non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.
Blockchain and the end of content moderation
The decentralized web, or Web 3.0, is based on the concept of ending centralized control and freeing ownership of the web from technology companies to individuals through shared ownership. The centralized web resides on the servers of hosting companies that make it available to users all over the world. This version, known as Web 2.0, is easy to monitor and control from where the servers are located, often in secure data centers. Web 3.0 redistributes ownership of the web, releasing control to everyone in the world through blockchain technology.
Blockchain is a decentralized public ledger for recording transactions without single ownership or control. This ends the monopoly on information held by centralized actors, democratization of the web in the hands of the people. Web 3.0 empowers the world and its inhabitants, ending the monopoly on information, today’s most precious commodity. However, this democratic move to empower individuals by giving them ownership of their information may present some challenges. In today’s global context, the decentralized web and its technologies can easily be turned against what it stands for – promoting a free and fairer world, ending information monopolies and aiming for equality and empowerment of global citizens. How does Web 3.0, in the hands of extremists, go against the basic principles of shared ownership of information?
Blockchain uses a public record-keeping mechanism or a ledger distributed to users without centralized control, allowing users to own and keep track of their data. This also means that no central authority controls decentralized data. With this comes the clarification of content moderation. Moderating content and deplatforming malicious actors made significant gains in the battle to moderate the Internet. Technology companies, with the help of a range of analysts, experts, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, remove harmful content from the web to ensure it does not affect online consumers. With Web 3.0 and the democratization of data in the hands of people, moderators will not have a role in Web 3.0 as content moderation is no longer possible. This presents an important challenge: who will deal with terrorists, extremists, religious fanatics, organized criminals and other harmful agents who gain ownership of their harmful content?
Islamic extremist content on OpenSea
Open sea provides evidence of how extremist actors are using the blockchain to curate extremism. OpenSea is an online Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace with a value for January 2022 that exceeds 13 billion dollars. NFTs are recorded on a blockchain, making each piece unique, and each comes with a digital certificate of authenticity. NFTs are assets, each assigned a unique identification code or token via a blockchain. These assets can be sold like any other unique item, such as artwork and valuables. OpenSea is influential and influences NFT creators, collectors and enthusiasts. OpenSea is also a well-placed marketplace among important NFT marketplaces such as Rarible.
There is evidence that OpenSea is currently hosting Islamic extremist content on the blockchain. For example, the Polygon blockchain on OpenSea contains ten copies of a life-like portrait of a known Islamic terrorist leader who is now dead, with five collectors retaining ownership of these unique pieces. Another collection of extremist content to martyr the Taliban contains 638 unique items, again on the Polygon blockchain, alarmingly with a total of 165 owners. The Ethereum blockchain on OpenSea has another collection of 773 unique artifacts, glorifying al-Qaeda, with only one owner so far. The Ethereum blockchain on OpenSea has another collection of 913 unique items with seven owners, trying to iconize jihad in the same way that the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Crypto Punks created trends based on their items on the Ethereum blockchain. The Ethereum blockchain also has a collection of 123 unique artifacts, aimed at sentimentalizing Islamic terrorism. Another observably influential collection on the Ethereum blockchain contains 911 unique items to glorify the mujahedeen and the Taliban. This collection has 470 unique owners and has so far generated 173 ETH (Ethereum), a cryptocurrency (1 Ethereum is worth $1657.50 on March 16, 2023). These NFTs are clear evidence that blockchain is already being leveraged to curate extremist content, which will affect extremism and terrorism for a long time to come.
How to reduce the threat?
What makes Islamic extremist content on the blockchain challenging for counter-extremism? The lack of content moderation on Web 3.0 platforms allows extremist content to remain online, affecting netizens; create appeal and trends to collect, own and interact with extremist expressions; inflame extremist sentiments, and provide enduring iconography for pseudo-religious extremism. Islamic extremism stands to receive the benefit of the blockchain as perpetual pieces of extremist content mimic the religiosity associated with their pseudo-religious extremism.
Are there any ways to mitigate this clear threat?
On a positive note, no individual is an island. Within the walls of encryption, the inability to moderate blockchain, and the ever-growing privacy concerns, extremism does not sit still, but tends to find ways to express itself. If extremist beliefs are only inactive in the minds, they cannot have the ability to change the attitudes, intentions and behavior of individuals/groups, radicalize them and take them down the path of extremism and terrorism. As Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) suggests in his theory of reasoned action that beliefs develop attitudes, intentions and behaviour; Extremism is not just empty beliefs, but is active attitudes, intentions and behavior that manifest itself in the open, both online and in real situations.
Evidence proves that even lone wolf terrorists used to leave digitally fingerprint behind and were not completely isolated actors until their extremist beliefs turned to violence. This behavioral window of opportunity can help counter the radicalization and moderation of extremist expression in a world of uncompromising blockchain and related technologies, which have already halted the moderator’s important role in removing violent extremist content from the web. Active extremist attitudes, intentions and behavior of individuals and collectives must be shown in the open both online and in real life. Moderators have social media, NFT Discord servers, NFT forums, discussions and message boards, classrooms, workplaces, communities and families, which continue to provide many opportunities for identification, moderation and countering radicalization and violent extremism.
