Terrorists love social media
“Killing dozens of people at a time and carrying out public executions, crucifixions and other acts,” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has left the world fixed in terror. Although these medieval acts of violence are horrid, these acts are not new for terrorists. What is new is the method by which ISIS shares these barbaric messages—social media.
With professionally edited videos, multilingual tweets, and online forums, ISIS has been able to disseminate graphic dreadful images, videos, and messages to the world. Most recently, the graphic execution of James Foley, Steven Sotloff, and David Haines was on display all over the most popular social platforms.
This dark side of social media pushes us to think about how power these complex networks actually are. According to Gabriel Weimann of the University of Haifa, “about 90% of organized terrorism on the internet is being carried out through social media.” ISIS has taken advantage of social media and have adapted very quickly. They have been launching very aggressive social media campaigns. With social media, they are now able to take initiative by sending “friend requests” and posting about campaigns and videos. They have also created and launched their own smartphone app called Dawn of Glad Tidings. This app broadcasts “news from Syria, Iraq, and the Islamic World.” The app also tweets from the user’s Twitter account without permission. This app garnered over ten thousand tweets in support of ISIS in just one day. With greater and greater presence of terrorism on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms, ISIS has been able “to instill fear, attract new recruits, and raise money on a global scale.”
I believe we are the generation of social media. We all are very connected by our social media platforms whether we know it or not. It is scary to realize that the network we use to share videos of our moms doing the Ice Bucket Challenge is the same network that a terrorist group is using to arm themselves against the west. Bridges are being made from their groups/nodes to ours.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/08/world/isis-fast-facts/
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-social-media-beheading-20140821-story.html#page=1
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/terrorist-groups-recruiting-through-social-media-1.1131053
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-iraq-twitter-social-media-strategy/372856/