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1) ISIS uses social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to spread propaganda, recruit supporters, and intimidate enemies. 2) ISIS has a coordinated social media campaign using thousands of individual fighter accounts and an app called "Dawn of Glad Tidings" to automatically post tweets. 3) The social media campaign is effective at spreading ISIS's message and intimidating image to help recruit thousands of foreign fighters, including over 100 Americans, to join the conflict in Syria.
Jour3300pres
- 1. N A TH A N S T E P H E N S O N Tweets of Terrorists
- 2. ISIS Summary ISIS: IslamicState of Iraq and Syria Al Qaeda splinter group of Sunni militants Seeks to bring Muslim-inhabited areas under its political control
- 3. Platforms Active across Instagram,Twitter, and Facebook Used to incite support and spread their message
- 4. From the Horse’sMouth Shapes their image directly through social media We receive a lot of content directly from ISIS, as opposed to through the lens of a journalist They are creating a brand for themselves
- 5. Content Post pictures andvideos of captured Iraqi soldiers, beheadings, mass executions
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- 7. Online Forums Traditionally, terroristgroups used online forums to disseminate information, communicate, and garner support. ISIS officials could easily control debate on these forums by deleting certain posts and suspend potentially troublesome users
- 8. Platforms Cont. Twitter ismore difficult to control, but provides more ubiquitous message Thousands of individual fighters have personal Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts Despite large number of accounts, the campaign is very deliberate and very coordinated One of the ways the coordinate this campaign is through an app called the Dawn of Glad Tidings
- 9. Dawn of GladTidings App AKA “Dawn” Official ISIS product promoted by the organization’s top users Advertised as a way to keep on latest news about the group Hundreds of users have signed up for the app
- 10. Dawn Cont. First usedin April 2014 Once signed up, the app posts tweets on behalf of your account Content is decided by individuals in ISIS’s social- media operation Tweets of links, pictures, and hashtags are posted by everyone who has signed up for the app Sometimes produces as many as 40,000 tweets per day
- 11. Dawn App Cont. Tweetsmade by the Dawn app are spread out to avoid triggering Twitter’s spam-detection algorithms
- 12. Dawn App Cont. Usedto spread below image Volume of tweets caused any search for “Baghdad” to generate the image among its first results Done to promote intimidating image
- 13. Intimidation Various reports saythat when ISIS invaded Iraq, Iraqi police forces abandoned their uniforms, dropped their weapons, and fled The invasion was met with little resistence Reportedly, partially due to the intimidating brand ISIS has created and spread for itself through social media
- 14. Organized Hashtag Campaigns ISISperiodically enlists thousands of activists to repetitively tweet hashtags at certain times of day so that the hashtags trend Skews results of Arabic Twitter account @ActiveHashtags
- 15. @ActiveHashtags Tweets the day’stop trending tags Various accounts that do the same thing Once ISIS hashtags make it into the streams, it can result in hundreds of retweets per tweet
- 16. Recruit Support ISIS usessocial media campaign to recruit support Increasing number of foreign fighters seeking to join ISIS Current reports estimate that thousands of foreign fighters (including approximately 100 Americans) are currently involved in ISIS conflict in Syria
- 17. Narrowcasting One of theways ISIS achieves this is through narrowcasting They develop specific content for various purposes In one video, the leader of ISIS vocalizes a message targeted specifically at children; he calls for “the youths around the globe” to join his cause Another video features a Canadian turned ISIS fighter attempting to appeal to Westerners
- 18. Online Support Certain groupswith no official ties to ISIS have taken it upon themselves to further enhance online presence Translate and repost ISIS content in various langauges Adapt content posted by ISIS to better target Westerners
- 19. Reaction from Twitter Twitterperiodically suspends ISIS accounts, but more accounts continue to open New accounts are quickly created and regain thousands of followers in a matter of hours
- 20. Conclusion ISIS uses socialmedia to develop a brand for themselves, spread their message, intimidate their enemies, and recruit support Coordinated, effective utilization of social media is an integral part of their organization
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