15 Ways Social Media Fuels Violent Extremism
By Bridget Johnson for Homeland Security Today
ISIS roared onto the social media landscape not with a gruesome beheading, but with a fluffy kitten. The beheadings would be infamously broadcast by the terror group, leading to scattershot social media bans followed by new accounts created by terrorists and their loyalists to replace and augment the ones that had been removed. But a social media censor searching for terror-related keywords or avatars of the ISIS flag may have been thrown for a loop by images of jihadists cuddling with calicos produced by the now-defunct Islamic State of Cat account on Twitter that in 2014 began posting retooled kitty memes such as felines cooing about their “mewjahid” as they lapped up milk.
These tweets of jihadists and their furry friends changed the game of public-facing extremist communications. For every photo of a stoning or beheading released by the terror group’s social media army, there were pics of caliphate ice cream shops or carnival games. The terror group churned out videos, e-books, magazines, apps, and more in a multimedia push to draw foreign fighters to their so-called state while attempting to engender broader sympathy or at least understanding for their goals among targeted segments of the global community. To get that propaganda stew to their intended audience, they needed fingers at the keyboards in the form of a global army doing little more than retweeting, sharing videos, liking posts, and using all social media and messaging platforms to outreach and network. Not just sharing official media, but creating their own propaganda. Not just using a couple of favored platforms, but injecting content across all spaces. And infusing such a deluge of propaganda into the online ecosystem that gray-hat hackers eventually had to take it upon themselves to try to control the wave by taking down accounts and content faster than the social media companies.
The ISIS cats were eventually deplatformed, but their symbolism continues in social media campaigns across a range of ideologies that strive to humanize the extremists. When one ISIS guide crowed about the pickles in the caliphate being better than Walmart’s, they weren’t out to recruit dill connoisseurs but were attempting to make the space in which their hate and horror unfolded relatable, humanized, and inviting. When ISIS social media accounts churned out pulse-pounding, slickly produced propaganda videos that could have come from the mind of a gamer or director of action flicks, the purpose was to make the terror group look cool to recruiting targets in this online space. Other extremists such as the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division followed with their own training camp videos that reflect this style.
As social media platforms are asked to self-police – with questions about when content crosses the line and some users favoring a free-for-all on these private platforms regardless of the extremist content or operation – it’s critical to understand how social media is used not just as a venting space for unpopular or hateful opinions but as a tool for extremists to grow their numbers, further violent acts, inspire lone actors or cells to violence, and even information-share with extremists of unrelated ideologies.
1. Recruitment into groups or movements
At its core, extremist activity on social media is an advertisement. Extremist movements need strength in numbers and the strength of their adherents’ convictions. Social media posts are intended to sell people on their ideology. Whether recruited into a terrorist group, recruited into associated movements, recruited into a media army that spreads this ideology beyond the control of censors, or recruited into a legion of sympathizers, those targeted by extremist propaganda ranging from tweets to memes to videos have been targeted for recruitment. Some on the verge of an attack may use social media to advertise their actions, but even that is an advertisement for their cause and, ultimately, future recruitment in the hopes that others of like mind follow in their footsteps.
The construct of social media has enabled groups to target particularly vulnerable individuals for recruitment. In 2016, as the #OpISIS movement was in full swing with gray-hat hackers taking down as many ISIS accounts and websites as they could, one hacktivist collaborative told me that ISIS recruiters hiding behind kitten or baby avatars on Twitter appeared to be specifically seeking non-Muslim American girls around the ages of 13 to 15. They would befriend what appeared to be a lonely young teen, cultivate an online friendship, isolate them from friends and family, then try to recruit the girls to conduct attacks in their hometowns or travel to wed ISIS fighters. The hackers said they were receiving new direct messages each week from frightened girls who tried to back out of the relationships only to come under threats; in deep by that point, they had no idea where to turn for help. Recruiters took advantage of their anonymity while exploiting the personal details that were accessible through the teens’ use of social media. For more, click here.
Free Stock photos by Vecteezy