US authorities and Internet giants are boosting attempts to counter the Islamic State (IS) group’s online propaganda, although it is unclear how effective these efforts are in hampering the extremists’ public-relations machine.
With calls to jihad and highly produced videos of Islamic State fighters in battle or killing captives, the group has long used the Internet and social media to recruit fighters for its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and to incite individuals around the world to commit terrorist attacks.
To try to stop this, Internet giants such as Twitter and Facebook are working hard to shut down Muslim extremist accounts, although these often pop back up under new names.
“Twitter has publicly said they’ve taken down close to 200,000 handles. They’ve taken down way more than that,” US Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Undersecretary of State Richard Stengel said at a recent seminar aimed at countering the Islamic State’s “brand.”
“YouTube has taken down literally millions of videos. Facebook has hundreds of people who are working 24/7 to take down this noxious content,” added Stengel, who also was the former managing editor of Time magazine.
US efforts are being led by the US Department of State’s Global Engagement Center, which was overhauled this year and brought under the leadership of former US naval officer Michael Lumpkin.
The center “is not going to be focused on US messages with a government stamp on them, but rather amplifying moderate credible voices in the region and throughout civil society,” US Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco said.
The US military’s Central Command — which oversees operations in the Middle East — is “actively engaged” on social media to counter Islamic State propaganda, Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway said.
“The command has a robust online engagement program that harnesses the professional talents and expertise of both military members and contractors working together,” he said. “We operate using truthful information directed toward regional audiences to combat [Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] ISIL’s lies and deception.”
Stenger said efforts are paying off.
“There’s now five times as much messaging on social media that is anti-ISIL than pro-ISIL, again, mostly in Arabic,” he said.
JM Berger, an expert on the Islamic State group, said they are feeling the squeeze.
“There is no question that ISIS supporters on Twitter and elsewhere are under tremendous pressure and they are performing significantly below the levels we saw last year, or even earlier this year,” he said, using another acronym for the Islamic State group.
“Supporter accounts have fewer followers and tweet less often. They are still able to distribute their propaganda to a shrinking core audience, but it is harder for them to broadcast widely and to get their message in front of potential recruits,” he said.
Brookings Institution Muslim militancy expert Will McCants said pressure on Facebook and Twitter has seen Islamic State supporters turn to smaller social media platforms such as Telegram to disseminate their propaganda.
“Still, they try to maintain a presence on the larger platforms because that’s where the potential recruits are,” he said.
Search for International Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group co-founder Rita Katz rejected the notion that Muslim extremist propaganda is slowing.
Islamic State propaganda “at least doubled last year if not even more. Further, in addition to the daily reports, in the last year the Islamic State has also increased substantially its publications, as it started several new ones,” she said, pointing to new Turkish and Russian-language magazines.
“These groups and individuals are still online and they’re still recruiting,” she said.
FBI Director James Comey said that while there has been a drop in people traveling to join the Islamic State group, the extremists retain the ability to “motivate troubled souls.”
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