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It is the growing and increasingly dangerous Canadian experience of the digital seduction of jihad.

“I cannot overstate it — at the heart of jihad worldwide, in Syria and Iraq, as well as what is happening now in Canada, U.S. and Europe, are American social media companies,” says Steve Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington.

“They are helping to drive it. If it were not for them, recruitment, fundraising and communication would not be what they are.”

From relatively old-school Internet sharing sites like YouTube and Facebook to current giants Twitter and newer and smaller cousins such as Ask.fm, Kik, WhatsApp and, just recently, SoundCloud, all platforms are exploited to press the jihadi cause, he says.

“Every major designated terrorist organization is active on all of these accounts.”

To be truly surprised that young jihadists are using the tools of the young is perhaps naive, but the depth and breadth and inordinate success of the social media strategy to amplify and echo the militant call has sparked closer scrutiny.

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In the early days of Al-Qaeda, fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, militants had little means to spread their message beyond the villages that fighters passed through. It might mail newsletters to London, but the message would be tired and limp.

The message now is immediate and modern — Internet memes and slogans, audio of speeches and video from the front lines, how-to guides and personalized encouragement, hipster jokes and proffered camaraderie, all on a smartphone.