Telegram
Blog
How the Islamic State Uses ‘Virtual Lessons’ to Build Loyalty
December 13, 2017By André Gagné and Marc-André Argentino The Islamic State has lost most of its territory and key cities like Mosul and Raqqa, and more recently Deir al-Zour and al-Qaim, have fallen to the global coalition fighting the terrorist group. In the face of such challenges, it’s tried to maintain legitimacy through what some have called a virtual caliphate. Within ...
Blog
Wilayat Internet: Islamic State’s Resilience Across the Internet and Social Media
October 4, 2017By Laurence Bindner, Raphael Gluck This article was originally published in French on Ultima Ratio. Since partly going underground in the deep-web, ISIS exerts continuous pressure to make its propaganda surface on the public web. Adapting constantly to ever more active censorship, ISIS uses the various web platforms in an opportunistic and agile way. Therefore, ...
News
Research Finds Social Media Disruption Impacting on Islamic State Propaganda
August 15, 2017In one 24-hour period, 65% of Twitter accounts tweeting out-links to IS propaganda were suspended within 17 hours Focus of online disruption on IS allows other jihadi groups to outpace them on social media VOX-Pol researchers from Dublin City University, together with colleagues from the University of Sussex, have found that the social media platform, ...
Blog
Telegram: The Mighty Application That ISIS Loves – PART II
June 14, 2017This post is Part 2 of 2. Click here for Part 1 By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard Reaching out on to ISIS members via Telegram channels is a significant challenge for beginners. First of all, as the Telegram application is installed, the application copies all the contact numbers on one’s cell phone and connects the ...
Blog
Telegram: The Mighty Application that ISIS Loves – Part I
June 7, 2017By Ahmet S. Yayla & Anne Speckhard ISIS has been the most successful terrorist organization in history using social media and the Internet for distributing its propaganda, dissemination of its news and more importantly to communicate. There is no doubt that the frequency and quality of ISIS posts on the Internet, including their videos, memes ...
News
VOX-Pol Coordinator Gives Keynote Address at Dublin’s IIEA
June 2, 2017On 15 May 2017 VOX-Pol’s Coordinator, DCU’s Prof. Maura Conway, gave a keynote address at Dublin’s Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), “Ireland’s leading think tank on European and International affairs.” In her address, Prof. Conway detailed the development of IS’s online strategy from 2014 to the present, with a particular focus on online-offline ...
Blog
Terrorists’ Use of Messaging Applications
March 23, 2016By Matthew Francis and Emma Barrett Terrorists and criminals, like the rest of us, need to communicate and, like the rest of us, they look out for ways of communicating that meet their particular needs. Some features of messaging applications may make them more attractive than others to terrorists when co-ordinating and planning their activities or ...
Blog
How Social Media was Key to Islamic State’s Attack on Paris
November 18, 2015by Robyn Torok While the average person was getting on with life in Paris before last Friday’s terror bombings and shootings, Twitter threads in Arabic from the Middle East were urging for attacks to be launched upon coalition forces in their home countries. “Advance, advance – forward, forward” they said, regarding Paris. Iraqi forces had ...