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When Iraqi soldiers fled its assault groups." to document those activities with
on Mosul last year, some of them Today, the ISIS social media machine professional-level high-definition
had been terrified by ISIS’s online is weaker than it has ever been, on a video. These productions require both
videos showing graphic executions purely structural basis. ISIS supporters physical space and the security to act
of prisoners. ISIS also aspires to are under heavy pressure from these with impunity.
spark a regional war with apocalyptic suspensions, limiting its ability to push "The current level of social media
dimensions, in keeping with its view propaganda out to wider audiences. suspensions is limiting the reach
that the end of the world is at hand. Social media companies, including of ISIS, while allowing for the
Shocking ISIS videos on social media Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, collection of significant open-source
of the torturous deaths of Jordanian could do more to crack down on ISIS, intelligence."
pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh in Iraq and including attacking its networks from Additionally, a key element of the
21 Coptic Christian hostages in Libya a structural level using social network ISIS message online is its projection
have provoked exactly the type of analysis techniques, rather than simply of strength. Unlike al Qaeda, whose
military escalation ISIS desires. policing content as it springs up. But caliphate ambitions were firmly
After ISIS started beheading Western it’s not clear that a more extensive framed in the distant future, ISIS
hostages in the fall of 2014, social crackdown is the best option. The claims over and over again that it is
media platforms began to crack current level of suspensions is limiting already victorious, with its claim to
down on its presence. YouTube and the reach of ISIS, while allowing for have established a caliphate as the
Facebook had existing processes the collection of significant open- centrepiece of that message. This
for dealing with terrorist content, source intelligence, among other image of success is a primary driver
although they have at times strained considerations. The current level of ISIS’s prolific recruitment of foreign
to keep up with the volume of material of pressure, perhaps with some fighters.
ISIS creates. fine-tuning, may be a reasonable ISIS may be the harbinger of a new
Twitter had resisted efforts to draw compromise. age in which conflict spills over into
the company into the role of values Unfortunately, fighting ISIS online virtual clashes, but it will not be the
police, but the spree of killings is not enough. ISIS’s powerful last social media battlefield. Other
last fall resulted in changes. Since online messages targeting extreme extremist groups will learn from its
September, Twitter has suspended personalities resonate importantly model, and some states—notably
thousands of ISIS supporters, in fits with its physical realities. If ISIS existed Russia, Iran, and Syria—are already
and starts. Meanwhile, Facebook took only on social media, it would be a deploying virtual legions to spread
its existing crackdown even further, mere shadow of what it is today. misinformation and manipulate
making it nearly impossible for ISIS Territory empowers ISIS’s social political outcomes in conflicts around
supporters to maintain fan pages and media and propaganda machine. the world. The lessons we learn when
online groups. Its expansive safe havens provide dealing with ISIS today will be relevant
"Facebook has nearly eliminated ISIS a safe environment from which to for a very long time to come.
supporters' fan pages and online murder hostages and prisoners and

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