WHY IS ISIS SO GOOD AT RECRUITING?
ISIS is an adept social media machine. Their propaganda strategies on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and platforms rival those of professional PRs and social media marketing experts. Through its social media propaganda, ISIS has unfortunately been very successful in garnering recruits and spreading their extremist ideology all across the globe.
WHY TWITTER?
Although this blog deals with the issue of ISIS’s social media strategy as a whole, its focus will be on one specific social media platform - Twitter. The writers of this blog believed it was apt to place the emphasis on one major social media platform for a more in-depth analysis.
But why Twitter over other social media platforms? It was found in a terrorism study published by George Washington University that ISIS sympathisers and ISIS supporters themselves prefer the use of Twitter over other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Whatsapp. There are several premises to explain why Twitter is prefered.
First, Twitter is the most ideal platform to introduce a new ideology in a very unassuming way. The act of “following” is less meaningful than Instagram and of course “friending” on Facebook. One feature of Twitter -hashtags- make ISIS an adept social media machine. Through trending hashtags, ISIS supporters and ISIS members insert themselves in currently popular discussions to gain more exposure. Now, you might think, “But Twitter is not the only social media platform that has hashtags?” Yes, it’s true that Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have the function of hashtags, but they simply do not work as effectively as Twitter. Because Twitter is the primary social media platform ISIS exploits, the blog too will be focusing on Twitter.
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TARGET
As an organization which intends to establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, their long term target is the whole world. However, at this stage, ISIS aims to convert and recruit the vulnerable ones first. So who is vulnerable?
The Youth. Even amongst teenagers, those who are lonely and lack a solid vision in life tend to fall for the social media tactics of ISIS. The young, easily impressible teens can be inculcated to believe that ISIS is a source of hope and purpose in their lives. Those who are lonely finally feel belonged -- by being part of the tight-knit ISIS community. The ingroup bias begins to develop as these targets set foot in the ISIS virtual community. Being exposed to the community’s “own peculiar language, stirring imagery and warm camaraderie,” the targets feel that they are part of something better, something meaningful. They feel the “sense of adventure and devotion to a cause” -- factors vastly lacking in their lonely lives.
The Youth. Even amongst teenagers, those who are lonely and lack a solid vision in life tend to fall for the social media tactics of ISIS. The young, easily impressible teens can be inculcated to believe that ISIS is a source of hope and purpose in their lives. Those who are lonely finally feel belonged -- by being part of the tight-knit ISIS community. The ingroup bias begins to develop as these targets set foot in the ISIS virtual community. Being exposed to the community’s “own peculiar language, stirring imagery and warm camaraderie,” the targets feel that they are part of something better, something meaningful. They feel the “sense of adventure and devotion to a cause” -- factors vastly lacking in their lonely lives.
Platforms. ISIS uses all social media platforms available - though its focus is on Twitter. After gaining extensive exposure through platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Diaspora. The social media soldiers turn to Whatsapp, Linkedin, Facebook, and Skype for a more personal interaction with potential recruits.
Methods. ISIS’s social media propaganda is not just about quantity. It has developed strategic methods to specifically target different groups and increase exposure-to-recruit rate.
Self-Insertion into Trending Hashtags. ISIS fully exploits the exhaustive nature of hashtags to further promote their organization. For every worldwide news or events, ISIS social media army would use the trending hashtags to insert themselves in the trend. For example, during the 2014 Napa Quake and the Worldcup, ISIS began to hijack the hashtags - #napaquake and #worldcup - and posted gruesome photos and threatening messages.
THE DAWN: ISIS APP
The Dawn of Glad Tidings is an official ISIS app that provides the latest jihadist news. But it certainly does way more than inform the app users. The Dawn is the primary tool to magnify the perceived influence of ISIS. Once the download is completed, the user is required to fill in a fair amount of personal information. The app- connected to the app user’s Twitter account- automatically repost ISIS related tweets to your account. The content is generated by an ISIS social media administrator. According to the Atlantic,
“The tweets include links, hashtags, and images, and the same content is also tweeted by the accounts of everyone else who has signed up for the app, spaced out to avoid triggering Twitter’s spam-detection algorithms. Your Twitter account functions normally the rest of the time, allowing you to go about your business.”
- the page you see once you download the app, the Dawn
MULTILINGUAL, WESTERN APPROACH
According to the ISIS Twitter Census, among the 46,000 Twitter accounts (in 2014) 73% of the tweets were in Arabic, 18% in English, and 9% in various languages. Just because ISIS is based in Syria and Iraq, the ISIS social media strategy is not limited to Arabic. By tweeting in the reader's’ mother-tongue language or in comprehensible words, ISIS narrows the perceived cultural gap by breaking the language barrier. Not only does ISIS use multiple languages, they use strategic diction and cyber jargon to appeal to the younger and western-culture audience.
Despite ISIS’s denunciation of western culture, ISIS hypocritically exploits west-originated cyber language to lure western teenagers. As shown by the ISIS tweet below, the tweet utilizes “lol” and the number “4” instead of for to falsely manifest similarities between ISIS and western teens.
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RADICALIZATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The phases of radicalization are classified as the following four stages: 1) agitation, 2) self-identification, 3) indoctrination and 4) violent extremism. During agitation process, one experiences fear and hopelessness from personal vulnerabilities such as poverty, trauma, and injustice. In self-identification, one feels peer pressure and the urge to belong to the group. In indoctrination, one builds personal capacity and in violent extremism, personal fulfillment through action and sacrifice.One loses his or her connections to society or family after each level, becoming increasingly ready to join the Islamic State step by step.
In terms of social media, videos that feature the group’s real-life situations from the wonder of their daily discoveries to violent beheadings get uploaded on YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr, and other media sites. These present not only their mission and purpose, but also the adventure and fun, attracting a growing number of online users.
ISIS has been masterfully utilizing social media to radicalize marginalized and disenfranchised youth internationally, owning at least 46,000 Twitter accounts and posting more than 200,000 pieces of content on social media daily. US Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken said "social media is a critical front in this because the [ISIL/ISIS] uses social media to project [their] narrative."
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