But not everyone is happy with the ability of large social media companies to exercise central control over the actions of their users. As social media like Facebook and Twitter have grown in popularity, alternative sites including Friendica and RedMatrix have offered social platforms with greater user privacy and freedom of expression.

“There is no central authority,” explains Mike Macgirivin, the principal developer and global coordinator of Friendica and RedMatrix.

Users can connect to the Friendica network in two ways. They can run the free, open-source software on their own server or they can create an account on one the free public servers. “They are provided by volunteers and are paid for out of pocket—for the benefit of providing free access,” Macgirvin says.

RedMatrix, which uses Friendica’s software, operates in a similar manner—although with greater privacy protections and built-in profile backup features.

That kind of infrastructure has made the networks welcoming places for dissident speech. But when ISIS propaganda unexpectedly appeared on the sites, it left many members concerned about legal jeopardy and the safety of fellow users.

In early July, ISIS devotees opened seven accounts on a Friendica.eu server, mirroring content from the group’s propaganda organs. With the accounts up and running, ISIS fans began advertising them on Twitter and in an affiliated Web forums as alternative hosts for the group’s content.

The links offered users convenient shortcuts to ISIS’ releases largely outside the reach of Twitter’s ban hammer.

Over the weekend, however, ISIS fanboys were shocked to discover that their accounts had disappeared and there was a banner in their place declaring, “IS not welcome on friendica.eu, congratulations to Bashar Al Assad on his reelection as president of Syria.”

Militants on Twitter fretted that someone had hacked the site—a common occurrence for online jihadis.

The reality was more prosaic. “[The militants] have made the mistake of using the Website of a private individual who is opposed to them,” one Friendica administrator says on condition of anonymity.

The administrator removed the seven accounts with ISIS material as well as any of the accounts that posted on their walls. The banner was his doing. “It was originally intended to be off-putting to the ISIS users while I dealt with this,” he explains.

The regime of Syrian president Al Assad has been at war with ISIS and its predecessor groups for three years.

The administrator says he subsequently edited out the congratulations to Al Assad out of respect for the political views of his non-ISIS users. He stresses that no one hacked the server.

Why did ISIS’s followers choose Friendica? Ever since an amateur pornographer from Maryland took control of an early Al Qaeda-affiliated Website in 2001, jihadi media have eked out an itinerant existence, wandering from host to host as administrative sensibilities and unidentified hackers have chased them off.

ISIS media—and accounts belonging to the group’s supporters—are present across a range of other social sites including Tumblr, YouTube and Facebook as well as more obscure hosts such as Archive.org, Justpaste and Gulfup.

Friendica’s experience, while not necessarily unique, illustrates how ISIS has managed to create a ban-resistant media distribution network, courtesy of its large and persistent web of supporters.

“Friendica was discovered by [ISIS] sympathizers to simply disperse jihadi media on one more platform with the ambition of making it more resilient,” says Nico Prucha, a researcher with the Austrian Institute for International Affairs who has studied jihadist social media.

The more places ISIS can spread its material, the harder it becomes much harder for any one actor to bock the militants’ propaganda.

Prucha’s research has shown the value of that dispersal for ISIS in weathering periodic suspensions from some of its more high-profile accounts. These accounts lose followers with each suspension and reemergence, as it can be difficult for followers to stay on top of the latest replacement handle.