To Stop Terrorists, Google Jigsaw's Radical Strategy is Talking to Them

Yasmin Green leads a team at Google's parent company with an audacious goal: solving the thorniest geopolitical problems that emerge online. Jigsaw, where she is the head of research and development, is a think tank within Alphabet tasked with fighting the unintended unsavory consequences of technological progress. That means listening to fake news creators, jihadis, and cyber bullies so that she and her team can understand their motivations, processes, and goals. "We look at censorship, cybersecurity, cyberattacks, ISIS--everything the creators of the internet did not imagine the internet would be used for," Green said today at WIRED's 2017 Business Conference in New York. Last week, Green traveled to Macedonia to meet with peddlers of fake news, those click-hungry opportunists who had such a sway over the 2016 presidential election in the US.