Recently, the news of anonymous’ so-called “war on ISIS” has hit the mainstream, surrounded by a strange sense of excitement and then, later, scepticism. On face value, an online war on ISIS’ internet based recruitment seems to be a good thing, a stride in a direction arguably not possible by a government agency. However, in the real world, its outcome was not as expected.

In theory, Anonymous have been successful. In the past few days, they have claimed to have shut down over 5,000 twitter accounts; with 20,000 foreigners travelling to Syria and Iraq, it is clear that the international recruitment is crucial in the survival and success of IS. There is a huge majority of this recruitment done online, through common social media platforms and websites. In fact, ISIS has its own media company backing its video production and sharing, with the hope that well produced and easy to find propaganda (such as the beheading of James Foley) will influence thousands of young westerners to join IS. However, the online recruitment doesn’t just benefit IS in the Middle East, but also helps their terror plots in the west. The most notable example is the Belgium suicide bomber Bilal Hadfi who attacked the Stade de France in recent weeks. He had a strong social media presence, being Facebook friends with the Syrian jihadi Abu Isleym (Abu’s photos show him posing with a decapitated body), and posting a call on Facebook for more attacks on the west in 2015. By shutting down twitter accounts, anonymous hope that men such as Abu and Bilal will not have the ability to preach hate and spread propaganda, and, by doing this, they hope to reduce the number of westerners travelling to Syria.

But, Anonymous’s war does not end on twitter, but they have attacked specialised IS run websites. The most common example of this is when they took down a website supporting IS, and replaced it with a viagra ad. Of course, this was only temporary, with the whole website being removed shortly after a host of spam attacks. However, the hacking is much more serious than the viagra ad may make it seem. This is again evidence of Anonymous stopping key recruiting tools, as many of the websites they attempt to remove contain information on how to contact members of IS in Syria, with some even hosting a Q and A for prospective jihadists. Again, anonymous argues this is them taking the fight to IS, removing their huge online presence and supporting the free world.

However, anonymous are not as successful as they make themselves look. Many have argued that they are having a negative effect, and that removing twitter accounts forces IS to move into other areas, such as the dark web. On face value, this seems like a good thing. If they move out of the mass market and into less popular areas of the internet then they lose possible recruits. Companies such as GhostSec, however, would disagree. They monitor jihadi accounts, recording information and monitoring their activity. This information is then passed on the FBI and other intelligence agencies. The information they record varies, and can help prevent attacks in Europe to inform bombing in Syria. In fact, there was once an incident of an IS member keeping location on their twitter, resulting in a successful bombing campaign. But, thanks to the war on IS, members are moving to anonymous platforms such as Telegram so they cannot be tracked. So, in practise, they are not removing the social media presence of the Islamic State, but are just forcing it further underground.

Also, not all of Anonymous’ information has been valuable. In their recent “pro-isis” twitter account list, their flaws were clear to see. Not only did the list contain innocent peoples account, but also included BBC news, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In addition to this, some accounts were simply added if they were in Arabic. This totally counters their image, of small concentrated attacks on accounts my thousands of members, and seems to be more of a random selection, hoping to remove a handful of true IS accounts.

Overall, it is clear that the removal of twitter accounts will help to limit online recruitment, but resulting loss of information on IS cannot be ignored. It fundamentally comes down to whether this is a cultural or military war. If military, then we cannot lose a source of information, but if culturally, we must do everything to stop indoctrination. However, Anonymous’ true effect will be shown through time.

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