We have all heard how effective ISIS is on social media. Recruiting, funding and planning all take place online, sometimes 140 characters at a time. The use of techniques like “Tiny-URL” allowing them to write longer messages through a link to WordPress is not uncommon either.

What makes ISIS so effective online is their departure from traditional Jihadi methods of information dissemination and recruitment. That is, ISIS has harnessed e-globalization through a collection of people from many Jihadi groups, including Al-Qaeda. They leverage a range of expertise such as information technology, journalism, propaganda, public relations, etc. to expand their reach online. This reach spreads internationally using various cultural and social norms to spread their messages to the masses.

Back In My Day

Back in the day you planned your attack, recorded your message, carried out the attack, and then sent your video-taped message to a news station. The news station then had control over the message and could do whatever they pleased with it. They could show it in its entirety, edit it severely, or choose not to show it at all, much to the chagrin of the Jihadi authors. This often resulted in a muddled message or one that didn’t even reach the target audience at all. It took massive attacks like the 1998 Embassy Bombings in East Africa or 9/11 to get ample media attention for the Jihadi cause. This was the method of Al-Qaeda up until very recently.

With the rise of social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Jihadi messages, videos and atrocities can be broadcast directly to their intended audience from the front lines via smartphones. The middle man of the large media companies have been cut out of the equation, leaving the Jihadis freedom to disseminate information how they please. ISIS has taken massive advantage of this utilizing local media stringers who provide near real-time information to the Jihadist websites.

Targeted Tweets

ISIS knows their target audience. According to a Pew demographic study, 32% of all American 18-29 year olds on the internet use Twitter. This gives ISIS a large population of young, impressionable and idealistic young adults to try and sway to their cause. The average age of Westerners leaving to join ISIS’ Jihad is 24. This puts them smack dab in the middle of that demographic.

According to a Brookings Institute report, from September through December 2014 there were over 46,000 ISIS supporter Twitter accounts. This same report states that these accounts had an average of 1,000 followers each. If even one of those 1,000 become violent and carry out a Lone Wolf attack or travel to join ISIS, it is a clear victory for them and strengthens their commitment to using social media.

Twitter actively suspends as many extremist accounts as they can, but when they shut down one, another pops up in its place. In some cases, multiple accounts pop up in response to a suspended account. This is similar to the US targeting of Jihadi leaders. You kill one, another takes his place. You kill Zarqawi, Baghdadi takes his place and three other fringe groups may appear. ISIS doesn’t have to play ball with the big boys. A recruit here and an attack there is all it takes to stay in the game. ISIS bunts and steals while the US and the Coalition try to hit home runs. This is guerrilla warfare in the digital age.

Crowd Sourced Jihad

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The decentralization of ISIS social media makes it incredibly difficult to counter their online message. Many of these ISIS Jihadi’s are young millennials who are very tech savvy unlike the older, seasoned Al-Qaeda core. These young militants usually have access to a camera phone with video ability. Access to technology makes it incredibly easy to video or live tweet an attack or killing and immediately upload it to Twitter.

Once online, the message takes on a life of its own. It is shared or retweeted and becomes difficult to take off the web. ISIS has even gone so far as to crowd source their terror when they asked for suggestions on how to kill the downed Jordanian Pilot in 2014.

Just Another Cog

The recruiting aspect of social media, Seamus Hughes argues in his Lawfare article, is only a cog in the machine of ISIS recruiting. He writes that when faced with the inability to find other people to agree with them in person, Jihadis seek justification for their radical beliefs by turning to the internet. He believes that the exception is being fully recruited online, not the rule.

But social media recruitment seems to be a much bigger cog in the machine than Hughes argues. 89% of cases of American ISIS recruitment involve social media. It’s becoming very easy to radicalize a young, tech savvy, impressionable kid with little knowledge about their religion on the internet using social media.

I searched “Reddit Jihadi Videos” and immediately found a subreddit dedicated to clips of religious violence. This shows how easy it is to find these support forums for ISIS. It takes almost any millennial or younger a matter of minutes to find these subreddits, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

Many of these young people feel like outcasts in Western society. Interacting with confident, smart, and charismatic extremists online through Twitter, Facebook and other online recruitment tools can give these youth the sense of purpose and belonging they’re searching for. These recruiters make them feel wanted and important.

If the potential recruit comes to them or goes to a message board with questions about their faith it is very easy to plug in ISIS’s ideology as the answer. These kids might not know any better and the answers they get from the recruiters are viewed as the truth.

The Floppy Disk of Jihad

While Al-Qaeda’s past techniques were like dialup, ISIS new online tactics are fiber optic high speed internet. They work faster and more efficiently, making countering their online message is increasingly difficult. The Jihadi social media teams are now working together, creating a more difficult network to counteract.

In response to this uprise in the use of social media for terrorism recruitment, the U.S. State Department released their own video, using the Jihadi’s own media against them. The video has around 900,000 views and urges potential Jihadis to turn back.

But counter-narrative campaigns like the “Think Again, Turn Away” campaign are hard to measure in effectiveness. It feels politically safer and more tangible to use body counts to measure the effectiveness of the U.S. led coalition. But, as Vietnam taught us, body counts are no way of countering an ideology.

The only way to counter an ideology is to control the narrative. The ability to control information is the key to winning the hearts and minds of these groups. Without a following, extremist groups are limited in who they can influence. Fracturing their influence and limited who they reach cripples their information cycle.

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