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John Mueller examines the degree to which the cybercoaching of terrorists should be cause for concern, arguing that in
many cases cybercoaches have little control over their amateurish charges.

Until 2016, Twitter was the online platform of choice for
English-language Islamic State (IS) sympathizers. As a
result of Twitter’s counter-extremism policies – including
content removal – there has been a decline in activity
by IS supporters. This outcome may suggest the company’s
efforts have been effective, but a deeper analysis
reveals a complex, nonlinear portrait of decay. Such observations
show that the fight against IS in the digital
sphere is far from over. In order to examine this change
over time, this report collects and reviews 845,646
tweets produced by 1,782 English-language pro-IS accounts
from February 15, 2016 to May 1, 2017.

The study aims to capture links between the use of encrypted communication channel -Telegram and lone wolf attacks occurred in Europe between 2015-2016. To understand threads of ISIS communication on Telegram we used digital ethnography approach which consists of the self-observation of information flows on four of ISIS’s most celebrated telegram Channels. We draw on public sphere theory and coined the term terror socio-sphere 3.0 as the theoretical background of this study. The collected data is presented as screenshots to capture a visual evidence of ISIS communication threads. This study shows that ISIS Telegram channels play critical role in personal communication between potential recruits and dissemination of propaganda that encourage ‘lone wolves’ to carry attacks in the world at large. This study was limited to the number of the channels that have been widely celebrated.

This article investigates the social media content of women who are affiliated with the Islamic State. Throughout one year, ninety-three Twitter accounts were tracked to explore the patterns of engagement by pro–Islamic State women online and examine how these patterns illuminate the roles that pro–Islamic State women occupy on social media networks. The study reveals that women who associate with the Islamic State mostly preserve the traditional gendered role of support in the online realm. However, support is not their exclusive role and some women are active in the organization, using Twitter to recruit, promote, and even commit terrorist violence.

The public outcry attending President Trump’s attempted travel ban from seven radical Muslim states, designed to prevent foreign terrorists from entering the country, has diverted attention from the longstanding danger of homegrown jihadists. As early as 2007, the New York Police Department (NYPD) released a 92-page report documenting the extent of al-Qaeda-linked homegrown jihad in Europe and the United States.[1] The Obama administration, however, went out of its way to ignore, deny, and whitewash any homegrown terror that smacked of Islamist violence. But a decade later, al-Qaeda has been all but eclipsed by the Islamic State (ISIS), which has skillfully used social media to become the foremost purveyor of jihadist indoctrination in the West, creating a “virtual caliphate,” extremely dangerous and easily accessible to vulnerable men and women from a variety of backgrounds in a manner al-Qaeda was never able to achieve. Even were all territory now under ISIS control to be retaken, this virtual caliphate could continue to pose a major threat.

The digital era of information technology appears to be a new space and place for the Indonesian Shiite communities to express their existence and conceal their “cloak” in the country.. Internet, websites, Facebook pages, Blog spots, and Twitter are tilized by these Shiite followers and supporters to show their presence, activities, interactivity, and thoughts about Islam. Responding to those Shia media, the anti-Shia movements such as the fundamentalist Sunnis, the Wahabi-Salafi’s, the Wahabi-Takfiri’s supporters have created their online publications and fan pages to counter those Shia’s publications. The online media battles on sectarianism issue then have sparked in the cyberspace of Indonesia in the last three years. Using a critical cultural studies tradition and textual approach, this study tries to examine the rise of Shia and anti-Shia online media as well as the meanings and contexts in which violent actions occurred amongst the Sunni-Shia Muslim communities on it. This paper also attempts to look closely at the way the media writes, covers, and build opinions and attitude to inform and provoke the public.