Online Library

The CTC is committed to continuing to search out unique sources of data to provide insight into the
workings of terrorist organizations and, when possible, making them available to the broader research
community, which will undoubtedly add its own insights and continue to enhance our collective understanding.
To further this end, all of the documents (both the original Arabic as well as English
translations) referred to in this report are being released on the CTC’s website at ctc.usma.edu.5 These
13 documents provide interesting and important insights on four main topics regarding the Islamic
State’s media organization.
The first insight is that these documents offer, for the first time, a conclusive link between the Islamic
State’s central media bureau and Amaq News Agency. More specifically, these documents show that
the central media bureau considered Amaq to be on par with other previously recognized central media
entities such as Al-Naba and Al-Bayan. Furthermore, the Islamic State’s Diwan of Central Media
encouraged local media bureaus to send content to Amaq, going so far as to make cooperation with
Amaq a part of each local media bureau’s monthly evaluation.
The second is that these documents show the emphasis the organization placed on producing diferent
types of products in order to convey a broader narrative about the caliphate. Although examining
the group’s propaganda products after they have been released demonstrates this as well, the level of
detail and effort put in by the group to this end, as highlighted by these documents, is more expansive
than previously acknowledged.
Third, these documents show very clearly how the Diwan of Central Media created rules, evaluations,
and internal memos that were designed to strengthen the centralization of the group’s media bureaucracy,
solidifying the central media organization’s control over what and how the local media bureaus
carried on their propaganda work. This finding runs counter to some discussion on decentralization
as one of the main reasons for the success of the group’s media operations.6
There certainly is an element
of decentralization to the group’s online activities, but these documents show there is a limit
to the group’s willingness to decentralize in the media realm. Indeed, in a document titled “General
Guidance and Instructions,” we find the following counsel:
“We also advise the brothers to avoid innovation because it is mostly the main cause of mistakes.”7

Finally, the documents show that the Islamic State’s media organization exercises self-awareness in
terms of its potential vulnerability. Indeed, the documents provide several insights into how the media
side of the organization recognized that its role in promoting the group meant that the media components
of the group would be in possession of information that could result in harm if it were known or otherwise obtained by the enemy. This led the group to focus on the importance of information
security among media operatives.
The Islamic State’s efforts in each of these four areas provide a more detailed understanding not only
of how the group organized and implemented its media strategy, but also how a militant organization
was able to capture the world’s attention using the art of propaganda. This report proceeds by examining
each of these four areas in turn.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

Social Media has become an important source for information about people and real-world events. Its importance is driven largely by the enormous number of people generating and updating content in Social Media platforms. In this report, we measure the extent to which we can accurately measure the salience of topics/concepts that might be of interest to an analyst, and evaluate whether concepts like positive and negative sentiment can be meaningfully extracted from Social Media content. As a test case, we examined Twitter content generated by female users who are sympathetic to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The basic technique proposed here can be developed further to create a more fine-grained exanimation of Social Media content.

In this paper we explore quarantining as a more ethical method for delimiting the spread of Hate Speech via online social media platforms. Currently, companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google generally respond reactively to such material: offensive messages that have already been posted are reviewed by human moderators if complaints from users are received. The offensive posts are only subsequently removed if the complaints are upheld; therefore, they still cause the recipients psychological harm. In addition, this approach has frequently been criticised for delimiting freedom of expression, since it requires the service providers to elaborate and implement censorship regimes. In the last few years, an emerging generation of automatic Hate Speech detection systems has started to offer new strategies for dealing with this particular kind of offensive online material. Anticipating the future efficacy of such systems, the present article advocates an approach to online Hate Speech detection that is analogous to the quarantining of malicious computer software. If a given post is automatically classified as being harmful in a reliable manner, then it can be temporarily quarantined, and the direct recipients can receive an alert, which protects them from the harmful content in the first instance. The quarantining framework is an example of more ethical online safety technology that can be extended to the handling of Hate Speech. Crucially, it provides flexible options for obtaining a more justifiable balance between freedom of expression and appropriate censorship.

The subreddit r/WatchRedditDie was founded in 2015 after reddit started implementing anti-harassment policies, and positions itself as a “fire alarm for reddit” meant to voyeuristically watch reddit’s impending (symbolic) death. As conversations around platform governance, moderation, and the role of platforms in controlling hate speech become more complex, r/WatchRedditDie and its affiliated subreddits are dedicated in maintaining a version of reddit tolerant of any and all speech, excluding other more vulnerable users from fully participating on the platform. r/WatchReditDie users advocate for no interference in their activities on the platform—meaning that although they rely on the reddit infrastructure to sustain their community, they aim to self-govern to uphold a libertarian and often manipulated interpretation of free expression. Responding to reddit’s evolving policies, they find community with one another by positioning the platform itself as their main antagonist. Through the social worlds framework, I examine the r/WatchRedditDie community’s responses to platform change, bringing up new questions about the possibility of shared governance between platform and user, as well as participatory culture’s promises and perils.