German state fights Islamist extremism with YouTube satire The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia is betting on wit and humor as an antidote to Islamist extremism. Extremists use YouTube to target young people, but NRW wants to fight fire with fire.

August 25, 2019   

(Deutsche Welle) The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has launched a satirical YouTube channel in the hope of stopping young people from becoming radicalized via the video sharing platform.

The project launched by the NRW Office for the Protection of the Constitution has two parts: a satirical YouTube channel and an accompanying factual channel.

The comical “Jihadi Fool” channel, launched on Thursday (22.08.2019) at the Gamescom computer games trade fair in Cologne, is a sketch comedy format that in NRW Interior Ministry words “satirically addresses the absurdity of radicalization, terrorism and Islamism,” while the educational channel refers to the satirical videos and counters Salafist propaganda with facts. It will be launched on Tuesday.

The name is a reference to the subculture “Jihad Cool,” used by extremists to rebrand jihadism as a fashionable lifestyle.

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