Austria

Man Gets 15 Years for Taylor Swift Vienna Attack Plot

Is this a wake-up call for the West on radical Islam or a damning failure of social media platforms?

Published MAY 29

Man Gets 15 Years for Taylor Swift Vienna Attack Plot

Story

Above: Defendant escorted to hear verdict in Taylor Swift concert attack plot trial in Wiener Neustadt, Austria, May 28. Image credit: Tobias Steinmaurer/APA/AFP/Getty Images

The Spin

Right narrative

The Vienna Taylor Swift attack plot is yet another wake-up call that radical Islam poses a direct threat to everyday life in the West. Beran Aliji, who openly pledged allegiance to IS, was building a shrapnel bomb in Red Bull cans and trying to buy grenades and guns off the black market — all to massacre young women and girls at a concert. Western governments can't keep ignoring this threat.

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Left narrative

The Vienna plot exposes a massive failure by social media platforms to keep terrorist content away from minors, as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram allowed radicalization to happen in plain sight. ISD analysts found 56 terror-linked posts accessible to minor accounts with basic searches, and none were blocked on YouTube or Instagram. Stronger regulations and platform accountability are the real fix here.

Institute for Strategic Dialogue