Michael S. Smith II is an American terrorism analyst, specialist in open source intelligence (OSINT), and a consultant in preventing and countering violent extremism.

[1][2] As of 2017 he was in a PhD program at Georgia State University in Communications, studying persuasion theory and terrorist propaganda produced to incite violence in the West.

[13] In 2016, in recognition of his work "funneling hacker tips" about ISIS's activities online to government officials, Foreign Policy magazine included Smith among the "Moguls" on its annual list of "100 Leading Global Thinkers", and Fast Company magazine ranked Smith 14 on its list of the "100 Most Creative People in Business" for "helping hack the bad guys".

[16] Smith reportedly considered taking a position in the Pentagon at the request of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, but decided to instead pursue a doctorate degree due to his concerns about Sebastian Gorka's role in the Trump administration.

[2] With representatives of Twitter, Facebook and Google, Smith provided expert testimony during the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism's October 31, 2017, hearing focused on extremist content and Russian disinformation online.