Social networks are key for Islamic State’s high-tech tug of war for hearts and minds

For months, a State Department office set up to counter Islamist extremism has been targeting Islamic State or IS, the militant group also known as ISIS and ISIL, by sending out Twitter messages and YouTube videos designed to discredit the group by highlighting its cruelty and brutality. But IS militants and followers have struck back with some surprising tactics: They have invoked the “terms of service” policies of major Internet companies to get the U.S. government videos and other postings taken down, either by reporting them as spam or even flagging them for excessive violence. IS’s social media campaign, officials and analysts say, is both aggressive and agile - complete with slickly produced, high-resolution videos, hashtag campaigns and even the creation of bots to boost the group’s Twitter messaging.

They’re very organised, very systematic and extremely sophisticated about how they approach social media. They understand the mechanics of how it works better than most people in this country do.

J.M. Berger, terrorism analyst and editor of Intelwire.com

On several occasions recently, U.S. officials say, Twitter messages attacking IS that were posted by the State Department’s counterterrorism office were removed shortly after they went up. A State Department official confirmed that the tweets vanished after an “organised campaign” by IS supporters to flag the centre’s postings and report them as spam “in order to have them removed.” State Department officials say the group’s ability to thwart its messaging was not only frustrating, it was fraught with irony: “It was their brutality we were showing.” The ability of IS and its followers to take down U.S. government messages—if only temporarily—is only one example of what officials acknowledge is the remarkable sophistication of IS’s social media efforts.

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