By Alessandro Bolpagni, Eleonora Ristuccia, and Grazia Ludovica Giardini
More than ten years ago, Halummu launched an online campaign entitled “Supporting Ribat and Jihad” to urge IS munasirin to spread IS propaganda material “to as many platforms and accounts as possible”, underlying that the “ongoing war between the camp of kufr and the camp of faith is waged on the military and media levels.” Over the past decade, while big tech companies are working to get rid of Salafi-Jihadi (al-Qaeda – AQ – and IS) users and content, media mujahidin are not mere guests, but rather true ‘habitués’ thanks to their dexterity and skill in exploiting the features and vulnerabilities of social media to avoid content moderation and conduct da‘wa, share propaganda material, recruit new supporters. This is mostly true for social networks, the online thughur (digital frontier) of the Salafi-Jihadi online ecosystem, where propaganda – especially on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok – is ‘openly’ and ‘publicly’ accessible, without a user needing any particular links to get to it.
When it comes to addressing Salafi-Jihadi propaganda presence on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, we are used to hearing that IS and AQ have been driven off these social networks. However, the reality tells another story. These social networks show an extensive presence of pro-AQ and pro-IS propaganda material shared by supporters who are gradually ‘settling on’ the digital frontier of the Salafi-Jihadi online ecosystem, no longer a place where propaganda is merely disseminated. This has led to the emergence of a horizontal propaganda stream between Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, wherein pro-AQ and pro-IS users are crafting their propaganda according to the platforms’ content typology and functioning. These different usage patterns reflect the very purpose of these social networks: while Facebook and Instagram are designed for intentional browsing, TikTok is a ‘tailor-made’ gambling slot machine. According to that, we are dealing with different platforms, usual content, but in multiple forms. Specifically, these social networks share several techniques exploited by the Salafi-Jihadi movement to disseminate propaganda material tailored to each network. These include the use of the comments section, Direct Messages (DMs), stories, re-posts, broadcast channels, group chats, live propaganda discussions, ‘Account Hijacking’, hashtags, ‘Photo Mode’, editing and filters, and ‘favourites’ section.
Firstly, Facebook is a highly ‘textual’ social network. This can be inferred from the fact that the character limit for post captions is 63,206. Hence, users are able to share large portions of text within the comments section and interact in a more extensive way. With more than ten years of experience, Salafi-Jihadi propaganda on Facebook is mainly in Arabic and articulated in long textual posts, often ‘hidden’ in the comments section. This section is also employed to spread content and links to other Facebook posts or outlinks to other social media. Furthermore, hashtags are highly employed as a functional tool for categorising Salafi-Jihadi content. Moreover, to make access easier for sympathisers, many users employ the “mention” and “highlight comment” functionality to reach many or all their followers. Overall, Salafi-Jihadi users tend to mainly share institutional and Ansar Production propaganda, articulated in text-transcriptions, videos, Salafi-Jihadi newspapers, and long-textual discussions. Within the Salafi-Jihadi online ecosystem, Facebook acts as a content aggregator, presenting various internal links and outlinks that direct users to archive websites and other social media platforms.
Instagram is halfway between Facebook and TikTok. Content is generally more ‘polished’ and ‘curated’ than on TikTok, where non-branded propaganda is particularly prevalent. As to how extremist material is distributed, Salafi-Jihadi users exploit several Instagram features which enable content to be shared both textually and visually. Stories are regularly employed by supporters not only to spread propaganda, but also to disseminate outlinks which lead to other social media platforms. Carousels are used to store Salafi-Jihadi content in a single post. This is the case, for instance, with entire issues of An-Naba newspaper or a series of bulletins by Amaq News Agency. The ‘Highlights’ section allows users to categorise propaganda material as well. Salafi-jihadi groups are also engaging in groups and broadcast channels, where institutional, Ansar Production, and non-institutional propaganda content can be found. More recently, supporters have been creating custom AI chatbots with whom to interact and receive information on emblematic Salafi-jihadi books, such as those of Anwar al-Awlaki. Besides this, Instagram AI chatbots are able to provide users with outlinks to the most well-known pro-IS directories collecting institutional and Ansar Production propaganda.
TikTok
Within TikTok, people are fully and unwittingly flooded with all sorts of content due to its peculiar algorithm and features. Considering the Salafi-Jihadi propaganda, it can be said that TikTok represents a functional space for its dissemination, giving prominent space to a specific type of propaganda material which distances itself from the canonical pro-Salafi-Jihadi propagandistic style. In this respect, alongside other typologies, it was possible to detect a particular type of Salafi-Jihadi propaganda, namely what the authors described as non-branded propaganda. This content employs the use of audiovisual elements devoid of any AQ or IS media houses’ logo, but directly attributable to Salafi-Jihadi groups or imagery. Moreover, TikTok was also seen to be the ideal landing for the dissemination of the so-called ‘Gaming-jihad propaganda’. The latter is produced using gaming platforms and focuses on the creation and reproduction of actual pro-Salafi-Jihadi propaganda. Nonetheless, monitoring how pro-Salafi-Jihadi propaganda is shared within the TikTok environment, it can be said that jihadi supporters take advantage of all the features provided by the platforms to accomplish their communicative purpose in terms of propaganda stream. Particularly, some TikTok users were seen to exploit the TikTok live streams in order to share Salafi-Jihadi propaganda and discuss it, creating a sort of safe interactional space within the platform. Therefore, TikTok is the perfect representation of what ‘the feed gambling machine’ is like, providing several ways to disseminate different content functional to varied audiences and purposes, often stressing and/or crossing the so-called ‘halal-haram line.’
Adapting to increase capabilities and effectiveness
Overall, each social network, which has its own audience, shows specific content shared by Salafi-Jihadi groups’ supporters through the exploitation of the platform’s features. According to that, Salafi-Jihadi groups’ supporters behave as the ‘average user’, who uses these social networks according to their functioning. In other words, propaganda material on Facebook is highly textual because Facebook focuses on connecting people through people. Propaganda on Instagram is centred around visual and textual content because Instagram connects people and content. Finally, TikTok, where propaganda content is completely articulated on audiovisual content, because TikTok connects users through content. Based on this approach and by employing a multiplatform propaganda spreading, Salafi-Jihadi supporters elaborate and adapt their propaganda to the targeted social media to increase their reaching capabilities and radicalisation effectiveness.
Alessandro Bolpagni is a Senior Analyst at the Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues & Managing Emergencies (ITSTIME) and a lecturer at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC). He also specialised in OSINT, SOCMINT, and Digital HUMINT, oriented particularly on the analysis and monitoring of the Salafi-jihadi online ecosystem.
Eleonora Ristuccia is a Junior Analyst at the Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues & Managing Emergencies (ITSTIME). She specialises in the application of OSINT and SOCMINT techniques. Specifically, she focuses on the study of Salafi-jihadi groups’ communication strategies and propaganda through various online platforms.
Grazia Ludovica Giardini is a Junior Researcher at the Italian Team for Security, Terroristic Issues, and Managing Emergencies (ITSTIME). She specialises in the application of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) techniques, and Digital Human Intelligence (Digital HUMINT). Her research activities are focused on monitoring Salafi-jihadi groups’ communication strategies and propaganda through various online platforms.
Image credit: Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash