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Bereits seit den 1990er Jahren gebrauchen TerroristInnen das Internet für ihre Zwecke, das ihnen ganz neue Möglichkeiten für Propaganda, Rekrutierung, Radikalisierung, Finanzierung und Planung eröffnet hat. Statt auf eigene Webseiten setzen TerroristInnen heute zunehmend und gezielt auf die Neuen Medien. Diese bieten eine hervorragende kostenlose Infrastruktur und erlauben es, ein globales Publikum zu erreichen. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt die terroristische Nutzung der drei größten Social Media-Dienste – Facebook, Twitter und YouTube – und das dahinterstehende Kalkül. Besondere Beachtung finden dabei Inhalte mit Bezug zu Deutschland.

Founded in 1996, the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) is one of the leading academic institutes for counter-terrorism in the world, facilitating international cooperation in the global struggle against terrorism. ICT is an independent think tank providing expertise in terrorism, counter-terrorism, homeland security, threat vulnerability and risk assessment, intelligence analysis and national security and defense policy. ICT is a non-profit organization located at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel which relies exclusively on private donations and revenue from events, projects and program.

Recognizing the correlation between the growing spread of violent extremist and terrorist content on the internet and online platforms and the significant increase in attacks inspired by these posts prompted governments, security agencies, and private companies to launch various countermeasures to reduce the spread and impact of such material. Struggling to adjust to these countermeasures and maintain their online presence, terrorists and violent extremists have migrated from mainstream online platforms to alternative online channels like 4chan, 8chan, Telegram, TikTok, and most recently to the new platform TamTam. This paper describes the migration to and within social media generally, with a specific focus on the newly discovered migration to the platform TamTam and presents the results of our extensive content analysis of hundreds of posts and shares containing terrorist and violent extremist content on this platform. These findings are discussed in terms of ethical and practical implications.

The growing presence of modern terrorism on the Internet is at the nexus of two key trends: the democratization of communications driven by user-generated content on the Internet; and the growing awareness of modern terrorists of the potential of the Internet for their purposes. How best can the terrorists’ use and abuse of the Internet be countered? As this article argues, the answer to violent radicalization on the Internet lies not in censorship of the Internet, but in a more sophisticated and complicated strategy, relying on the theoretical notion of “noise” in communication process theory.

Homegrown Sunni extremists (jihadis) and Latin American street gang members (cholos) represent potential threats to national security. Both groups are known to inhabit the video- sharing website YouTube. Videos representative of each group were selected at random, and the visual motifs in the videos were categorized. Findings suggest similarities and differences between the two groups that may have significance for how practitioners address each threat, and for determining the likelihood that the two groups may begin to work in concert. The portraits that emerge of jihadis and cholos may assist in developing strategies to counter the violence perpetrated by each.

Just three years ago, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province was the poster child for the Islamic State’s efforts to maintain a constant and lingering threat across the globe. That year, the group conducted a series of regional terrorist attacks across Central and East Africa, and expanded inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More importantly, it produced a plethora of propaganda releases, making it one of the most active Islamic State’s affiliates on the continent. Today, this has largely changed. While still a serious and deadly threat inside Congo and beyond, its propaganda output is a shell of its former self. This decline is, in part, thanks to the current joint Ugandan-Congolese operations against it.