IT for Peace? Fighting Against Terrorism in Social Media – An Explorative Twitter Study

2.1 Dissemination of Terrorist Propaganda in Social Media

Much research about terrorist organizations and social media deals with terrorist organizations in general or specifically with the so-called Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL, DEASH). That is why we try both to talk about terrorist organizations in general and to specify the IS due to the current situation. Media play a significant role in terrorism: “The media are partly responsible for the people’s panic reactions” [13]. According to a US-representative study, fear enhances precautionary measures; anger prevents them [18]. Christoph [7] argues: “Without a letter of confession, a farewell video by the assassin or a last posting in the social network a bomb attack would be nothing else than a capital crime. Only through the terrorist communications strategy, the crime turns into a terrorist act.” However, terrorists do “not rely on media-makers, themselves became the agent in this game” [7]. And there is a reason for this: “Terrorism can […] only gain in importance if it becomes meaningful on the media level” [7]. Therefore, social media offer “the advantage of immersion, which means the merger of medium and message. The credibility of terrorist narrations is strengthened by spreading it about supposedly reliable portals like YouTube” [7]. Thus, it feels as if “the terrorist was one of us by using the same communication channels (“-weapons”) as the recipient” [7].

Not only YouTube serves as propagator: In recent years, Twitter became the most popular Internet platform for terrorists [15]. Neer and O’Toole [19] investigated the use of social media by ISIS and emphasize that social media (especially Twitter) are used as a strategical tool to get young jihadists, Ba’ath officials, and women enthusiastic about their violent convictions. Klausen et al. [16] stress that the British terrorist group al-Muhajiroun uses its international network of YouTube-channels elaborately for propaganda and the presentation of violent contents. Weinmann and Jost [38] explain the use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by terrorist organizations for recruitment and propaganda: social media make it easier to find like-minded people and to consume their contents. Torok describes in more detail how ISIS uses social media. It “provides a stage on which ISIS can perform its recruitment-oriented ‘theater’, presenting a carefully packaged image of itself as the fulfillment of a kind of ultimate jihadi fantasy” [33]. Furthermore, Torok claims that “social media constitutes an institution wherein extreme beliefs and actions are ‘normalized’, or made to seem the standard practices of dedicated Muslims” [33]. This leads to ISIS developing and disseminating “its central narratives, often by reframing familiar concepts such as jihad and martyrdom” [33]. By performing this jihadi fantasy of normalized extremism, ISIS addresses young Muslims to follow them as kind of family.

Simultaneously, terrorists can address an almost endless number of potential members, who otherwise would not find the way to the closed forums. According to the study, at the beginning forums were the primary contact points for members, interested parties, and newcomers. Their use was complicated by the police and they came into the firing line of news services, which attacked and shut down the sites. After that, more and more Internet-affine terrorists turned to the social networks [38]. However, the forums still exist parallel since the hard core of the community debates “general developments in the scene, discusses ideological and theological questions and consumes car propaganda” [38] here. Weimann adds that also other online services are involved in the recruitment and radicalization process “such as Kik or Skype” [37], which allow “direct, real-time communication between recruiters and their audiences” [37].

Zelin concentrates on the content [39]: All media of the IS are published in Arabic and only a small part is translated into other languages. Archetti [3] states that online propaganda does not contribute to the recruitment: Viewing a jihad video could even increase the determination of terrorist opponents – consequently an opposite effect. Despite this conflict, it says: Every attention is essential. While some people respond with reluctance, some others are inspired – and that is what the IS wants to achieve [27].

Another aspect is the professionality while handling social media. The members’ oral skills (to translate the statement and videos into European languages) [10] contribute to the relief of understanding. Also, the IS propaganda complies not only with potential new fighters, but also with “technically proficient and talented users of social media to sustain the machinery of recruitment” [10]. Since May 2014 IS videos or other media are produced by the al-Hayat Media Center, a special production unit for Western recruitment [37]. The materials by al-Hayat Media Center exist in many languages and are spread via social media. For example, “IS released a video inciting Muslims to come and participate in jihad, featuring a German chant with an English translation” [37]. This video was posted on Twitter in June 2014 [37].

The aims of the propaganda, in whose dissemination social media play a key role, range from external intentions such as distributing fear to internal purposes such as creating emotional solidarity with the target group [5]. The strategy of IS members is to recruit potential supporters from all over the world with the help of postings and to create global terror cells. Greene [11] takes the tactical procedures into account: A popular tactic to spread ISIS propaganda with social media are “Twitter-bombs”, which use the most popular hashtags of the week and which are integrated in IS-related postings to reach a larger audience [11]. Thereby, the IS reaches people, who are usually not interested in propaganda material and accidently stumble upon terrorist tweets. Another trick for rapid spread is to follow each other on Twitter [4]. Freedom of expression, liberal or insufficient content review on Twitter encourage terrorist intentions. The opposite tactic of ISIS to the widely spread of general propaganda is “narrowcasting” [37]. As Weimann describes, focusing on specific subpopulations by using specific tailored contents is an emerging new trend [37].

2.2 Combat of Terrorist Propaganda in Social Media

Gartenstein-Ross [9] opens up a new perspective on terrorist actions on the Internet: He concedes the IS to use Twitter for example successfully, but simultaneously draws attention to the fact that the IS completely relies on the success of this propaganda. It should be an aim to weakening the IS’s communications strategy. His approaches call for the establishment of a small and quick unit, which is supposed to refute IS-loaded propaganda [9]. Gartenstein-Ross sees a weak point referring to the credibility: One reason why IS messages are vulnerable is that parts of them are not true so that the IS risks extensive damage concerning the perception of its credibility [9].

Turk deals with general measures and strategies to fight against terrorism [35]. Accordingly, the United States are the most important world power and market leaders in the technology of anti-terror-development. In contrast, Jeberson and Sharma [14] focus on the specific determination of possible methods to identify terror suspects in social networks. Cheong and Lee [6] describe that these data could be collected in a knowledge base in connection with intelligent data mining-, visualization-, and filter methods. They could be used by decision-makers and authorities for quick reaction and control during such a scenario. Furthermore, Sutton et al. [32] deal with the application of backchannels as a special form of data mining for acquiring information. Weinmann and Jost [38] explain that “the analysis of terrorist online communication as it is accessible on the corresponding social media sites [can] tell a lot about the way of thinking, the motivation, the plans, and fears of terrorists.” Instead of a strict censorship of radical contents, therefore “terrorist communication strategies [should be disturbed] by a mixture of technical (hacking) and especially psychological (anti-propaganda) means” [38]. Hussain and Saltman [12] emphasize that general censorship can actually be counterproductive and they suggest positive measures such as the expansion of contents against the extremism.

Gartenstein-Ross also concludes that it would be a significant victory to weaken the strategic communication campaign of the IS. Weimann sees the security community and governments as well as researchers in the role of a counterterrorism force. For the security community, according to Weimann, it is necessary “to adjust counterterrorism strategies to the new arenas, applying new types of measures including intelligence gathering, applying new counter measures, and training law enforcement officers specialising in the cyber domain” [37]. He observes researchers from various disciplines “coming together to develop tools and techniques to respond to terrorism’s online activity” [37]. Generally, Weimann suggests that not only the supply of propaganda but also the demand has to be reduced [37]. As a long-term strategy “to combat radicalisation and recruitment” [37] he adds the construction of counternarratives. Yet, (believable) anti-propaganda does not come from abroad: Under the heading of “Anti-IS Humour”, Al-Rawi explains [2] that hundreds of Arabic YouTubers began to transform an ISIS-video with religious singing into a funny dance clip after its release. Moreover, it is possible to focus on preventive measures in combination with (offline) information at schools, universities or prisons [28].

This present knowledge about anti-propaganda provides a starting point for our analysis. We explore anti-propaganda according to the fight against terrorism and try to systemize it. In many approaches, the focus is on the recruitment of new members. Therefore, pictures and videos are supposed to influence the young users of Twitter through their quick and easy consumption. In the following, we investigate and analyze countermeasures using the example of Twitter.

3.1 Methodology

Our analysis focusses on anti-propaganda in tweets and compares terrorists’ statements to expressions of the US government or media reports, for example. For the applied qualitative content analysis, it was necessary to reduce the data of Twitter so that the amount got manageable qualitatively [36]. On Twitter, one can find many accounts and hashtags, which deal with the fight against terrorism.

The research began with the account of the US government @ThinkAgain_DOS, which tries to reveal the propaganda of the terrorist organization. There were found many hashtags like #FreeTheWorld or #VivaSAA, which serve the fight against terrorism. These include #ThinkAgainTurnAway, #Daesh, #DaeshLiesExposed, #alleyesonISIS, #IstandwithSyria, #FreeTheWorld, #Syria, #ISIS, #trollingday, #trollingisis, #isismovies, #ISIL, #NotInOurName, #No2ISIS, #OpIceISIS, and many others. Moreover, with the help of the Twitter function (suggestion), there could be found several users with similar interests, e.g. @OYEQF, @QuilliamF, @Sil3nceBl4ck, @AnonymousMedia, @AntiTerrorismTR, @Active_Change_F. The identifiable material of the accounts and hashtags from March 1^st to March 31^st was collected and stored (Table 1).

We compress the filtered material using Open Coding [31], which created categories, from which we finally selected and analyzed specific examples exemplarily. A limitation is the lack of representativeness; however, this was not the goal of this work. It is not about the confirmation of predetermined hypotheses, but about the development of hypotheses and theories from the material [31]. Furthermore, bias effects cannot be excluded due to the explorative process with the identification of significant characteristics. Moreover, English tweets were investigated – consequently, the work focusses on effects and activities in the English-speaking area.

Overall, the found posts, hashtags, and accounts could be assigned to three (not always completely selective) categories: (I) clarification, (II) parody/satire, and (III) hacking. They are based on the later compressed subcategories, which were created in the encoding process (press, pictures, trolling, anime, Grand Prix, spoof). In the following, the main categories are supposed to be investigated and in each case, a representative example should be analyzed. We try to work out significant phenomena out of the mass, but this does not always work. For instance, accounts and trends are fast moving and exchangeable in the category of hacking. They are very similar so that remarkable differences are hard to determine.

3.2 Category I: Clarification

Clarification means to try answering to the terrorist propaganda with logic to invalidate it. It is a complete clarification in terms of a statement, which clarifies unknown connections. The two accounts @ThinkAgain_DOS and @AverageMohamed are interesting since they have the same aim but work very differently. @ThinkAgain_DOS as the official account of the US government, precisely since March 2016 The Global Engagement Center, was supposed to take the role of the pioneer concerning the fight against terrorism on Twitter. It describes itself as a provider of “information and facts about terrorism and the international community’s activities to end terrorism.” (Source: https://twitter.com/ThinkAgain_DOS). In contrast, @AverageMohamed fights against the terror by trying to spread information with cartoons. The practical target group, which has to be investigated, are therefore the accounts @ThinkAgain_DOS and @AverageMohamed, whose activities consist of the clarification of the general public as well as potential IS supporters.

Figure 1

Tweet from @ThinkAgain_DOS.

Figure 2

Tweet from @syrmukhabarat.

A well-known method is the dissemination and commenting of current releases about the topic. In the @ThinkAgain_DOS tweet (02.03.2016), they spread and comment on an article of the newspaper The Independent (Figure 1), which contains a related link to a report about British imams, who obtain information in Iraq about the fight against the ISIS. This happens hoping that the imams spread their impressions from Iraq at home and thus counteract the further radicalization. We see that the measure, which is count on, is the clarification about the actual circumstances in IS territories in social media. @Selbyist replied to the tweet: “This will need thorough investigation. I don’t trust that rag Independent, and who’s paying for this, George fucking Soros?” (02.03.2016). Thus, firstly “Independent” as a source is criticized, which he/she does not trust, and it is asked for the financing. Here, one can see that clarification by media reports is not sufficient for credibility.

The users are critical, especially if it originates from the US government, whom they do not trust. A good example is the following discussion: @syrmukhabara posted a collage with six smaller pictures of male, covered in blood bodies, which is decorated with the logo of the Syrian-Arabic army and a link to a newspaper article (Figure 2): “Here are the Rebels that were ambushed trying to escape Krak des Chevaliers into Lebanon” (20.03.2014). The comment from @syrmukhabarat assigns the dead to the rebel groups. The news paper article headlines: “11 rebels killed fleeing famed Crusader fort: Syria army” (20.03.2014). Therefore, it connects the two even though the source of the picture is not clear. @ThinkAgain_DOS comments: “[…] They could also be #alquaeda fighters whom #Assad used to send to Iraq and Lebanon #thinkagainturnaway” (20.03.2014). Thereby, the discussion on the unclear source of the picture has been opened and following speculations have been made.

Figure 3

Picture campaign by @ThinkAgain_DOS.

Figure 4

Picture campaign by @ThinkAgain_DOS.

Figure 5

Tweet by @AverageMohamed.

Besides the news articles, @ThinkAgain_DOS also posts pictures or videos, which are supposed to communicate educational messages. Under #UnitedAgainstDaesh a picture (Figure 3, 09.03.2016) was posted, which shows an Iraqi woman and a girl, who sit on a couch side by side and look seriously: “‘For one hour a day they electrocuted me: cables to my head, hands and feet. I was crying and begging him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen.’ Iraqi woman held captive by ISIS for 4 months.” The comment on the picture says: “#UnitedAgainstDaesh: Coalition seeks to destroy the evil perpetrators of extreme violence against”. The post’s aim is to strengthen the accusations against the ISIS to be violent and ruthless.

On 13^th March 2016, @ThinkAgain_DOS posts another picture (Figure 4), which displays a woman and a girl, who hold up a sign. The text says: “ISIS DOES NOT REPRESENT ISLAM”. They both look at the camera. This gives the impression that they straightly look at the viewer. The supposed mother-daughter-team should not arise pity but convey the viewer that two strong Muslim women are responsible for the clarification about ISIS. The picture remains uncommented; it was only equipped with the hashtags #NoToDaesh and #DaeshLiesExposed. The two women stand symbolically for all modern Muslim women who do not support the ISIS and who do not let themselves be discriminated.

However, @AverageMohamed, a kind of fictional character, produces cartoons, which aim at protecting young people from radicalization using clarification. The Guardian, The Telegraph, as well as Radio Bayern 2, reported about him and his work. He posts a link to one of his YouTube videos (Figure 5, 21.10.2015), which is headlined with “Identity in Islam” and equipped with various hashtags (#almuhajirah, #jondi). These hashtags are also used by terrorist organizations among others and are supposed to undermine the propaganda work and reach adolescents, who are likely to get radicalized. The video deals with the question of society, religion, and identity. He promotes for variety and tolerance and makes these parts of the Islam. Thereby, he tries to counteract the arguments of the extremists, which claim that its Allah’s will to kill all the unbelievers.

Figure 6

#TrollingDay IS fighters as bath ducks.

Figure 7

#TrollingDay IS fighters with goats.

3.3 Category II: Parody and Satire

Parody is a hilarious satirical imitation by distortion and exaggeration. The satire is a genre, which criticizes and stultifies events. Both aim at expressing mockery about serious issues.

Under the hashtag #TrollingISIS and #TrollingDay we could identify pictures, which obviously make fun of the IS. The hacker network Anonymous declared the 11^th December the “ISIS Trolling Day” and made a plea on the website Ghostbin for using the satirical strength of the Internet to post memes and cartoons which make fun of the IS. This plan is part of the operation of Anonymous, which wages a cyber war against the ISIS since the attacks on 13^th November 2015. Under #TrollingISIS and #TrollingDay, they posted a flood of modified ISIS pictures. A popular element, which was spread rapidly, was the replacement of the ISIS fighters’ heads with yellow bath ducks. Instead of weapons, the fighters hold up toilet brushes (Figure 6).

Anonymous explicitly called for using goats on the pictures: “post photos of goats while @ing Isis members with captions talking about their wives”. This kind of parody is based on the rumor that the Prophet Mohammed nursed sodomy with goats. Since sexual intercourse is largely a taboo subject, this accusation strikes the chord particularly. This kind of criticism on the Islam, in particular on the IS, therefore is strongly politically motivated. In Figure 7, one can see IS fighters, who ride oversized goats and wave a flag with the statement “We Fuck Goats”.

Figure 8

#TrollingDay IS fighters with dildos.

Figure 9

#TrollingDay Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with detergents.

Another popular presentation are ISIS fighters connected with homosexuality. In Islam, homosexual intercourse is considered as fornication and is prohibited under penalty of death. In December 2015, a video was released which showed how two homosexual men were captivated and thrown off a roof. ISIS is virtually hunting homosexuals, even more abusive is the description ‘gay’ for them. In Figure 8, one can see armed IS fighters, whose weapons are turned into oversized dildos. The user tweets below: “Join #IslamicState brothers are waiting #TrollingDay.” This implicates that the ISIS were a ‘gay club’, which hurts their dignity. In further pictures IS fighters are shown in lady’s underwear swinging the ‘Gay Pride’-Rainbow-Banner. Also, the hint on the virgins was picked up again by a Meme which tells: “Promise 72 Virgins. Doesn’t mention Gender.”

Another topic of various tweets of the Trolling Days is the lack of intelligence of the IS. The displayed post, for example, shows the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi with the detergent Daesh (Figure 9). The hashtag #Daeshbag is inspired by the word “douchebag”, which colloquially means sucker. With the advertisement of detergent, the IS is – literally – portrayed effeminately. The brainwash, which happens through propaganda and recruitment, turns the supporter to marionettes of the IS, individual opinions are rejected, says the intension of the anti-propaganda.

Besides the politically motivated satire measures, which build a targeted intention of the anti-propaganda, there are also pure parodies of the IS. One example is the hashtag #ISISChan or “ISIS_Chan”. There one can find pictures on Twitter of a green-haired girl with black jihadists clothes and a melon. ISIS Chan was created by users of the Japanese textboard-site 2channel (Figure 10). On 24^th January 2015, a thread with the title “Let’s make ISIS into a moe girl and send it to them!” was created. A Google bomb should fill the results of the image search on “ISIS” with presentations of the anime girl. In the first 24 hours, the hashtags were used 9.000 times on Twitter (ibid.). Figure 11 shows ISIS Chan with a melon on a plate. She holds the knife wrongly at her throat. The subscriber explained that she wanted to teach the ISIS what knives are actually for: cutting melons.^[1]

Figure 10

Guidelines for ISIS Chan.

Figure 11

ISIS Chan with a melon.

A Japanese Photoshop and hashtag campaign shows edited pictures of the IS with two Japanese hostages (#ISISCrappyCollageGrandPrix). On 20^th January 2015, ISIS publishes a video on YouTube, in which a masked fighter threatens to kill two Japanese hostages if Japan does not pay two million dollars of ransom. Japanese users replied with parodies of the video with the hashtag. Figure 12 shows the IS supporter cutting a kebab, and there are hate comments of IS supporters below the pictures, such as: “Japanese people, you are so optimistic. Is it because he said 5800 kms you think you are safe zone. We have army everywhere.”^[2]

Figure 12

#ISISCrappyCollageGrandPrix IS fighter with kebab.

Figure 13

@isis_karaoke IS fighters dance presumably with “Stayin’ alive”.

On 26^th December 2015, the self-declared caliph of the IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, makes a plea in an audio message for all Muslims to join the fight. Though, many Muslims rejected the IS on Twitter with reasons like “My goldfish is ill, I, unfortunately, have to go to the veterinarian” or “Sorry, I am busy watching Netflix”. For the Muslims, it was important to show that ordinary citizens have other things to do than joining a worldwide religious war. The account ISIS_Karaoke acts according to the motto “dropping songs, not bombs” and provides pictures of IS fighters with lines from pop songs. The background of this is the new prohibition of music of the IS in Racca, the capital of the so-called caliphate.^[3]Figure 13 shows Jihadists, which presumably perform “Stayin’ alive” from the Bee Gees.

3.4 Category III: Hacking

Another category of the fight against terrorism includes hacking. “The hacker network Anonymous declared the virtual war with martial words to the Islamic State (IS) after the terror series in Paris.”^[4] After the Parisian attacks in 2015, hackers, outside Anonymous, dedicated themselves all over the world to the fight against ISIS on social networks.

Figure 14

Tweet from @Operation_ISIL.

Figure 15

Tweets about #GhostSecGroup.

Figure 14 shows the tweet from @Operation_ISIL from 16^th March 2016. It lists hashtags, which lead to similar topics and a word document with a series of accounts, which have been disarmed. Figure 15 illustrates that there is a possibility for everyone to join the war against extremist groups. For this, all users are asked under appropriate instructions to report conspicuous accounts. Other activities are kept hidden from the social network since it involves illegal activities, which are not intended for the public. The success of these hacker attacks remains questionably as numerous sites are callable despite many barriers. Hackers can also be ‘haunted’ by ISIS users. They fight among each other and simultaneously call for a hunt. In the post from 18^th March 2016, @intel_ghost draws attention to a German ‘pro-IS’ rapper and asks the community to “Go get him!”. The hacker scene participates actively in parodist pictures and videos and distributes them. Hacking, therefore, refers to illegal activities, like the blocking of accounts and the appeal to the population to report suspected persons as well as legal activities by multiplying parodist media.