The Islamic State in the social media

The Islamic State in the social media

The Islamic State (IS) is the latest, evolved form of terrorism. It differs significantly from any terrorist group known in the history. First, the goals of the IS are more ambitious than that of al-Qaeda, for example. Second, IS state consciously use the social media and Internet in general to make people know they are out there. In this essay I will elaborate on this latter.

First of all, however, there must be a brief summary of the IS and its goals. The group was founded in 1999 and became known later as the al-Qaeda in Iraq. In 2006, the group became Islamic state of Iraq (ISI). Their real breakthrough was the Syrian civil war and the US leaving of Iraq. At that time, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was their leader and he sent troops to aid the Syrian rebels. Later the various fighting cells united and the Islamic State of Levant and Iraq was formed. The last step was pronounciation of the Islamic State (IS) as a worldwide caliphate. The IS conquered vast territories in Iraq and Syria and keeps most of it still under control.

The IS imposed the sharia law in its territories immediately. This means they don’t tolerate anything that is not Sunni Islam. They might overlook people for being shia or christian if they are paid, but there is no guarantee for complete safety. Whoever shows a slightest hint of resistance, is homosexual, or just have an unlucky day will be tried and executed by the IS.

This is the first thing people know the IS for. They always publish footages of executions, be those beheading of Western journalist, shooting of supposed Russian spies, stoning or burning alive and so on. Sometimes executions are performed by children to give a more dramatic effect. IN the beginnings, IS used to publish this footages on the biggest social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Luckily, the operators of the sites reacted in time and accounts spreading material from the IS are instantly banned.

Of course, execution tapes are not the only thing IS spreads. They create memes, often using popular Wester memes as a base. Their videos are not exclusively execution videos.The footages are often war scenes which bear a strange resemblance to (mostly American) war movies as they borrow scenes from those. These videos are created professionally. There is a professional staff, equipment and lots of money behind it. All of those are in order to maximize the effect on the audience.

It is important to note, however, that not all of IS’s content is violent. Sometimes they post videos or pictures of giving aways food to people or just cute things, such as kittens. Nevertheless, these things hardly balance the overall image if the organization. Most people identifies them with as a vicious, violent group.

To sum up, IS uses the social media in a  professional way. They achieved their goal in that that most people has heard of them, however, the image they created is extremely violent and alienates most potential supporters as well as urges everyone to intervene.