I remember when the biggest problem there was porn bots.
Twitter is the new frontier for jihadist propaganda, according to an extensive review of more than 75,000 tweets in a leading counterterrorism journal exclusively reviewed in advance of publication by Fox News.
The article, called “Tweeting for the Caliphate,” was authored by independent academic investigators Nico Prucha and Ali Fisher. It will be available on Tuesday in the CTC Sentinel, a journal published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. It explored the Syrian opposition group Jabhat al-Nusra and its established links to Al Qaeda as a case study (in Syria, the Assad regime is said to allow social media activity, in part so that government officials can monitor the traffic).
“Twitter has become the main hub for the active dissemination of links guiding users to digital content,” the report found, adding that a new generation of jihadists now engages in attacks after extensive exposure to online propaganda. “These jihadists decided to engage in physical violence after being active within the virtual dominions of al-Qa’ida where exposure to the media had an impact on their personal lives and understanding of religious conduct.”
They’re awfully tech savvy for a bunch of people bent on imposing a 12th Century way of life on the entire planet.
On a side note: it’s disheartening that Al Qaeda has a better grasp of the potential of social media than the RNC does.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member