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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep890: Sophie McDowall explains how terrorist groups use music on platforms like SoundCloud to radicalize new listeners. She details how artists bypass content moderation using coded language and nasheeds featuring battlefield audio. (15/16)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, News, Society & Culture, Arts

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sophie McDowall explains how terrorist groups use music on platforms like SoundCloud to radicalize new listeners. She details how artists bypass content moderation using coded language and nasheeds featuring battlefield audio. (15/16)
1960

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.6

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0:53.8

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0:59.0

For full terms, visit the QVC website. I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Sophie McDowell, research associate at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy looking at a subject I had no knowledge of before Sophie and her colleague

1:28.3

Ahmed Sharari and Stefan Vedanovich write it up, which is the use of music to recruit bad actors,

1:36.0

specifically terror, but any bad actor, and music used in a way that you wouldn't recognize it

1:42.9

if you don't understand the language of the music.

1:46.6

Sophie, a very good evening to you. This has to do with the music that we call streaming,

1:51.7

where you can go on a channel like the, I think the most famous one is Spotify,

1:56.2

and listen to song after song, or call up what you want to to hear from somewhere. How is it that there

2:03.1

is said to be by as long ago as 2006 when Robert Biller was head of the FBI, that there can be

2:09.9

a message for recruitment in that? What does it look like, Sophie? Good evening to you.

...

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