Weekly News 15



The digital war against ISIS is being lost. What should be done?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/13/digital-war-against-isis-lost-islamic-state-mohamad-al-arefe
Facebook app icons on an iPhone.

Key Data/ Statistical Info

  • Accounts such as Mohamad al-Arefe’s prove it: he has 20 million followers on Twitter – more than anyone else in the Middle East. 
  • He only follows five accounts – all versions of himself in Indonesian, Farsi, Urdu, Turkish and (perhaps most worryingly) English. He also produces popular “Snap Fatwas” on Snapchat. 
  • He is a one-man, multilingual, global extremist-leaning media network.
  • Isis’s most valuable territory – and the one that it is holding comfortably – is online: it has a hugely successful international brand
The issue of extremist values and ideologies is one of the main disadvantages of new and digital media. The availability of social media apps, such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, allows anyone to upload explicit/ extreme content online that can be accessed by people all over the world. One extremist propagator  named Mohamed al- Arefe is one of the many users that utilize apps suhc as Twitter and Snapchat to promote the extreme ideas of Isis. With "20 million followers on Twitter" the impact that these accounts has on the world is clearly a significant issue. In recent years there have been many news stories on how people from the UK have been influenced by the ideas of extremist groups. Therefore it is vital that we see how the indoctrination of these ideas, which are publicized on social media can have a significant impact of the scale of terrorist networks in the world. 

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