The Redirect Method (TRM)

Moonshot CVE

Moonshot is a social impact business specialising in countering violent extremism and other online harms. We design new methodologies and technologies to enhance the capacity of our partners to respond effectively to the threats posed by harms such as violent extremism, disinformation, and gender-based violence, online and offline.

The Redirect Method is an open-source methodology that uses targeted advertising to connect people searching online for harmful content with constructive alternative messages. Piloted by Jigsaw and Moonshot in 2016 and subsequently deployed internationally by Moonshot in partnership with tech companies, governments, and grassroots organizations, it uses pre-existing content made by communities across the globe, including content not created for the explicit purpose of countering harm, to challenge narratives which support violent extremism, violent misogyny, disinformation, and other online harms.

Just as other companies use ads on social media and search engines to sell material products to an audience defined by, in whole or in part, the keywords they are searching for, TRM places ads in the search results and social media feeds of users who are searching for pre-identified terms that we have associated with a particular online harm.

TRM can be extensively tailored to platform requirements and campaign goals, but at its core are three fundamental components: the indicators of risk (e.g., keywords); the adverts triggered by the indicators; and the content to which users are redirected to by the advertisements.

The methodology recognizes that content not created for the purpose of counter-messaging has the capacity to undermine harmful narratives when curated, organized, and targeted effectively. This approach also mitigates the risk of low retention rates experienced by bait-and-switch advertising, in which individuals are presented with content that differs significantly from that which they were searching for. Instead, TRM shows those users content which responds to and counters socially harmful narratives, arguments, and beliefs espoused by the content for which they were originally searching.

TRM has been deployed in partnership with tech companies, governments and grassroots organizations all over the world, in multiple languages, and designed to counter a wide range of online harms.

Typical deliverables include:

• regular reports
• dashboards and other analytical products
• infographics
• presentations

Address

Moonshot CVE
4th Floor
18 St Cross Street
London, EC1N 8UN
United Kingdom

Contact person: Ross Frenett
infomoonshotcve [dot] com (E-mail) | Website