Introduction
As the Islamic State gains control over vast amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria in hopes of creating a caliphate, it becomes an increasing threat to the Middle East, and potentially to the United States (Michek and Misztal). According to an overview given by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the radical jihadist organization has accrued an estimated 17,000 fighters since it was formed in 2000. A small, though significant, number of these fighters are citizens of the United States and several European nations. Investigation into why Westerners are joining ranks with ISIS has revealed the group’s unprecedented ability to use various social media channels to disseminate recruitment and propaganda material.
A post on the Brookings Institute blog written by Javier Lesaca, a visiting scholar at George Washington University, elaborates, “Analysis of the digital audiovisual campaigns released by ISIS since January 2014 suggests that ISIS has established a new kind of terrorism, using marketing and digital communication tools not only for ‘socializing terror’ through public opinion as previous terrorist groups did, but also for making terror popular, desirable, and imitable.” This “new kind of terrorism” constitutes a highly effective system of recruiting followers from a variety of social groups and spreading extremist sentiment. According to John G. Hogan, a psychologist studying terrorism at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, ISIS targets their young audience by selling membership as a chance to be a part of something greater than oneself (Shane and Hubbard). Another group, Western women, are targeted through online talk of “Nutella, pictures of kittens, and emojis,” according to a CNN segment aired February 18, 2015.
Besides its ability to make terror appealing and use current popular culture trends to its advantage, ISIS is effective on social media because of the scope and sheer volume of the material it produces. Between January 2014 and September 16, 2015, Lesaca tallied the release of 845 audiovisual campaigns, all developed by one of 29 audiovisual producers associated with ISIS. Three of these producers, including Al Hayat, target a global audience, while the remaining 26 target the areas already under ISIS control (Lesaca). In order to convey their messages effectively and attractively to diverse audiences, media is shot in high-definition, accented with sophisticated graphics and released in several different languages on a variety of social media platforms (Becker). Dabiq, the magazine published on the deep web by Al Hayat, in particular, is filled with sleek image campaigns designed for maximum visual impact (“Dabiq (Magazine)”).
Figure 1: Advertisement in Dabiq encouraging Balkan citizens to join ISIS.
The preceding image, for example, from Dabiq Issue #10, encourages Balkan citizens to join ISIS. The top includes images of jihadists overlain on an image depicting the natural beauty of the Balkans. In the lower right corner is a darkened image of body bags.
In addition, ISIS’ presence on social media sites like Twitter is extremely concerning in its reach. The group’s network on the site, comprised of actual jihadists and their supporters, constitutes an estimated 60,000 accounts (Truvé). To amplify their Twitter capabilities, ISIS has even created an Android app called The Dawn of Glad Tidings that allows the group to tweet their messages through the accounts of thousands of their followers (Speri). The users behind these accounts spread messages of hate and publicize brutalities such as prisoner executions by beheading and immolation (Gladstone). The subsequent media coverage of these horrific posts has the unfortunate effect of drawing further attention to the propaganda (Gladstone).
Twitter, however, is not the only social media domain over which ISIS has demonstrated mastery. The group regularly releases videos and images on other platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, including several created by Western fighters who have recently joined ISIS, others depicting gruesome crucifixions and beheadings, and still others containing footage of fighters relaxing poolside or enjoying Snickers bars (Speri). In their online campaigning, ISIS has even engaged in the recent online trend of cat memes by posting several themselves on the now suspended twitter account @ISILCats (Speri).
U.S. Efforts to Combat ISIS Online
ISIS’ wide-ranging success with social media has raised enough concern that efforts to combat their online presence are taking shape on several fronts. The efforts of the United States government to battle online extremism began in 2011, when President Obama signed an executive order establishing the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) in response to the growing online presence of al Qaeda. The CSCC, a small subset of the State Department consisting of 50 analysts, has since switched focus to the Islamic State (Berger). One official from the department described the centerpiece of its efforts, a program called Think Again Turn Away, as a means of offering “alternate perspectives to the misguided ideological justifications for using violence” (Berger). In other words, it hopes to deter potential new members from being recruited. The campaign, launched in 2013, is currently taking place on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Tumblr. Though the some of the Think Again Turn Away accounts on these sites have substantial numbers of followers or subscribers, their effectiveness cannot be accurately judged with a follower-count alone. An examination of the outputs of Think Again Turn Away on various social media platforms reveals its overall failure to accomplish anything of measurable worth.
Since its creation, the Think Again Turn Away Twitter account in the English language has tweeted roughly 11,000 times to over 25,000 followers. In an effort to match the linguistic diversity of ISIS’ campaigns, Think Again Turn Away also manages Twitter accounts in Arabic, Punjabi, Urdu, and Somali (Berger). In a Think Progress article by Hayes Brown, former contractor at the Department of Homeland Security, former State Department official Will McCants explains that these tweets are meant to overlay the radical Islamic material on the site and “blunt the recruitment pitches online.” For example, on September 14, 2015, in response to the execution of a journalist being held prisoner by ISIS, Think Again Turn Away tweeted, “US President condemns murder of David Haines; his brother says #ISIS not about Islam, only terror http://goo.gl/IF4RYp #thinkagainturnaway” (@ThinkAgain_DOS). So far, other manifestations of this effort has consisted of a steady stream of news stories containing similar anti-ISIS messages.
The value of the high volume of output of the Twitter account, however, is marred by embarrassing exchanges and negative unintended consequences that include repercussions beyond the world of Twitter. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group for studying online extremist behavior, conducted a thorough examination of the methodology employed by the Think Again Turn Away campaign. The Twitter account is designed to act in two ways: by directly engaging with pro-ISIS accounts, or trolling and by tweeting counter-material (Katz). The first method of engaging extremists on Twitter is nonsensical. Each “Think Again Turn Away” tweet responding to ISIS propaganda provides Jihadists a platform to further articulate their ideas. Perhaps the most egregious example of this problem is the Think Again Turn Away response on August 6, 2015 to a tweet from a pro-ISIS account called Amreeki Witness, stating “IS has flaws, but the moment you claim they cut off the heads of every non-Muslim they see, the discussion is over” (Katz). Though the tweet was not addressed to the State Department, Think Again Turn Away replied, “#ISIS tortures, crucifies & shoots some- ISIS also gives ultimatums to Christians: convert, pay or die- Some flaws u say?” (Katz). A lengthy “series of rebuttals” followed, providing Amreeki Witness a stage to expound on radical views. Katz explains, “The Think Again Turn Away account, instead of ignoring the claims of a pro-IS jihadist, dignified them by responding.” The U.S. State Department operates under the assumption that by engaging in such “petty” Twitter wars, the department is discrediting the accounts they interact with. In reality, these actions lend legitimacy to low-level Jihadists and aid in the promulgation of extremism. If ignored, these voices would fade into the background of the hundreds millions of messages tweeted each day.
The second method employed by the Think Again Turn Away Twitter, disseminating counter-material, is smeared by inaccuracy and lack of evidence backing up assertions made by the account. According to Joshua Keating, an international affairs reporter for Slate, Think Again Turn Away has tweeted several stories based on flimsy evidence or containing false information since its inception (Keating). One example is a May 12, 2015 tweet providing a link to a story about forced female circumcision of two million women in Mosul, Iraq (Keating). The story was already one-year-old at the time, but beyond its lack of timeliness, the claim it makes had already been refuted by several journalistic sources in the area (Brown). Samuel Oakford, the UN correspondent for VICE News, cites a similar incident as further evidence of the account’s inaccuracy. On May 11, 2015, Think Again Turn Away tweeted an unconfirmed British tabloid article stating that girls kidnapped by ISIS frequently commit suicide (Oakford). The only source for the article was an aid worker in Canada identified only by pseudonym, and there was no follow-up reporting after the initial article (Keating). By circulating stories like these that are based on extremely limited evidence or are simply untrue, the State Department is damaging its own credibility and doing little to discredit ISIS.
In addition, advertising the violence and brutality perpetrated by ISIS on the Think Again Turn Away Twitter may actually encourage some to join ISIS, rather than deter them. Keating suggests that highlighting atrocities, even when based solidly in fact, is at best harmless and at worst “may be selling points…for prospective ISIS members.” Dr. Jeff Victoroff, a professor at the University of Southern California studying the psychology of terrorism, agrees, “There is a psychological error in trying to scare people off with threats that something might be exciting and thrilling…If you challenge a young adult, particularly a male, with the fact that something might be especially difficult or challenging, you’re just exciting them” (Hansen). This phenomenon may be explained in part by the pervasiveness of violence in current popular culture. Lesaca’s analysis of the 845 campaigns released by ISIS between January 2014 and September 16, 2015 reveals that over 15% are “directly inspired” by ultra-violent films and video games such as Saw, V for Vendetta, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto popular with the young-male demographic.
Besides several perceived negative effects of the Think Again Turn Away Twitter campaign, some content on the feed may have the positive effect of generating an emotional response against the actions and beliefs of ISIS. For example, a story posted about a young woman from the UK who came to deeply regret her decision to join ISIS once confronted with the extreme violence of the group may have the effect of preventing potential recruits from enlisting with ISIS. Tweets like this and those concerning acts of extreme violence and brutality perpetrated by ISIS, as well as information regarding successful counter-measures, could conceivably deter potential new members from joining with its appeal to pathos. Just after the recent ISIS attack on Jakarta, Indonesia, the account tweeted about the successful arrests of several terrorists involved in the attack and retweeted a message with the trending Indonesian hashtag #KamiTidakTakut, meaning “we are not afraid” (@ThinkAgain_DOS). Keating suggests messages like this “might make a dent,” but measuring just how much of a difference they make is impossible. Daniel Benjamin, co-creator of the CSCC and former counter-terrorism chief at the State Department notes, “There is no way to tally the number of people who might have had second thoughts about joining up with ISIS, so no one really knows how this did.”
Another potential positive effect of Think Again Turn Away on Twitter the usefulness of simply making anti-ISIS material available on the web could help reduce the weight of anti-American messages. In a defense of the account, McCants said, “The US government has to contest these kinds of [jihadist] messages, because what was happening prior to this was nothing…at least this way, we’re offering some American perspective and shooting down some of the more egregious examples…You see an evil, you see a poison, you have to counter it.” The former coordinator for the CSCC, Alberto Fernandez, expresses a similar sentiment, “We don’t give ourselves airs that we are a huge operation or that we are radically shifting sentiment…But, at the very least, we are beginning to begin to present alternate points of view” (Alioto). While it is not outside the realm of possibility that the number of State Department sponsored tweets are making a small difference in countering online extremism, it remains improbable. A study published in The Middle East Journal in 2012 demonstrated that the efforts of the State Department’s precursor to Think Again Turn Away, the Digital Outreach Team (DOT), were unsuccessful in shifting the current conversation surrounding Muslim extremism. Only four percent of posts by internet users viewed the outreach positively (Khatib, Dutton and Thelwall). In a sample of several hundred posts on online discussion threads concerning the actions of DOT, users more commonly ridiculed or refuted the efforts of the outreach team than they did engage with them (Khatib et al.).
Figure 2: Chart from “Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Case Study of the US Digital Outreach Team” Depicting Attitudes Toward DOT Material as compared with Other Material
The study also reported, however, that users who remain silent online may view the effort more positively. But, because of their lack of visible response, this effect is impossible to measure, while the negativity surrounding the outreach is demonstrated plainly by these statistics.
Unlike the The Think Again Turn Away Twitter account, the YouTube channel produces original material and has thirty-three uploads to date. The account made news on August 22, 2014 when it released a short satirical video titled, “Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land.” Since the video was posted, it has been viewed almost 900,000 times, making it the most-viewed upload. The clip is a patchwork of news footage, closed-circuit TV and other forms of video set to ominous music. Depicted in the video are several crucifixions and a suicide bombing inside a mosque. In a highly inappropriate combination, this brutality is coupled with a flippant tone. Viewers are sarcastically urged, “Run do not walk to ISIS Land” and the video ends with the following quip: “Travel is inexpensive because you won’t need a return ticket” succeeded by images of dead fighters (“Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land (ISIS/ISIL)”). Like “Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land,” other clips featured on the account also contain extremely graphic violence. Despite the CSCC’s best effort, the video was a flop, generating a barrage of criticism. The satirical tone renders the content ineffective in shifting opinion. It is not serious enough to successfully condemn ISIS, but it is so graphic that it may actually cause the opinions toward ISIS of those who favor violence to become more favorable. This video is simply another example of the overall failure of Think Again Turn Away to accomplish its goals.
The idea for “Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land” came to former CSCC coordinator Alberto Fernandez in the summer of 2014 (Miller and Higham). Inspired by the Monty Python parodies of the Crusades, Fernandez asked his team to cull the most violent footage of ISIS fighters and supporters available online to be included (Miller and Higham). Despite being the brainchild of the Center’s coordinator himself, nothing much came of it. 900,000 views on YouTube is in no way impressive, considering the highest-viewed uploads on the site garner hundreds of millions of views. To make matters worse, the State Department admitted that only one percent of the 900,000 hits likely represents views by the target audience, the rest being journalists reporting on the video (Brown). Like the Think Again Turn Away Twitter account, the graphic material featured in “Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land” is likely to do little to change the opinions of Islamic State radicals and may serve instead to cement their beliefs, or, in the case of moderates, encourage them to join ISIS. Richard Stengel, head of public diplomacy appointed by John Kerry, explains this potential danger as “the backfire effect: when you try to disabuse somebody who has a strongly held belief, more often than not it makes their belief even stronger” (Miller and Higham). Regardless of whether the video is strengthening Islamic extremism, the State Department has not been able to produce evidence to suggest that the video is doing its intended job of preventing people from joining the fight with ISIS in Syria because producing such evidence is not possible, as explained by Daniel Benjamin. Evan F. Kohlmann, the chief information officer at the security consulting firm Flashpoint Global Partners, explains that this and other U.S. efforts online fail to resonate with the target audience of moderates who may be on the fence of joining ISIS because “They don’t seem to have a clear picture of what audience they are trying to reach, or how to influence them” (Gearan).
Another site embraced by the Think Again Turn Away campaign, Ask.fm, is less graphic though equally as embarrassing and ineffective as both the YouTube channel and the Twitter account. The site is a question and answer style forum in which visitors to a user’s individual page can ask questions anonymously. The site is used most commonly by teenagers in need of an anonymous outlet. One Gizmodo blogger describes the foray of the campaign into this platform as follows: “Think Again Turn Away’s accounts are, to put it lightly, trash fires in a medical waste dump on Planet You’re Bad At Your Job, and Ask.fm is one of the worst” (Knibbs). It appears that the State Department itself realized the uselessness of the account, as the last response was posted over one year ago. Questions and responses on the site ranged from unproductive to entirely irrelevant. For example,
Question: “Our deaths are in paradise while yours are in hell. Bloody greetings, Jihadi John.”
Response: “As appalling as his actions are, Jihadi John likely has better English-language skills than what you have demonstrated.”
Exchanges like this cannot serve any real purpose. This exchange neither provides substantive information against ISIS nor bolsters the position of the U.S. Even more appalling are irrelevant exchanges like the following:
Question: If you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be?
Response: This kind:
Surely discussing ice cream flavors is not helping the anti-ISIS cause online. In the same fashion as the Twitter account, the Think Again Turn Away Ask.fm engaged in petty exchanges or produced output completely extraneous to its goal.
Conclusion
Despite waging a battle against ISIS on several social media fronts, the U.S. State Department Think Again Turn Away program has proven unfruitful. Some have argued that simply by making counter-extremist material available on the web, the campaign serves a worthy purpose. But evaluation of the campaign as a whole is problematic because of the difficulty of measuring the success of its two primary goals: reducing the influence of ISIS’ social media activity and discouraging online users from joining ISIS. There is simply no way to determine how many people did not join ISIS because of the efforts of the CSCC. What is known is that Think Again Turn Away, in all of its forms, is embarrassing to the U.S. in its pettiness, irrelevance and inappropriateness. Consider again the YouTube video, “Welcome to the ‘Islamic State’ Land,” created as a part of the campaign. The satirical tone and graphic violence are unsuitable to the subject and purpose of the video, which was viewed almost exclusively by journalists writing stories on it, rather than the target audience. Several posts on Twitter and Ask.fm, due to inaccuracy or absurdity respectively, should never have been created. Discussing ice-cream flavors is not a viable counterterrorism strategy. Additionally, the Think Again Turn Away social media may have the far more sinister effect of actually encouraging moderates who are on the fence about ISIS to join. One psychologist cites the “backfire effect” as a real and dangerous possibility resulting from the CSCC disseminating graphically violent material online. Another unhappy consequence of the campaign is the Twitter account’s tendency to provide a stage on which extremist opinions can enjoy further attention. In an NPR interview on Think Again Turn Away, Fernandez was confronted with the saying, “never argue with a moron, they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience” (Goodwyn). Perhaps he should have taken these words to heart in devising a social media campaign designed to engage directly with ISIS and its supporters.
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