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The Islamic State’s Information Warfare: Measuring the Success of ISIS’s Online Strategy
How successful is the Islamic State’s online strategy? We analyze the tweet content and metadata from suspected ISIS accounts and find that despite increased monitoring accountability measures by governments and social media platforms, ISIS is still successfully producing a coherent message and transmitting it to a global audience.
Citation
Siegel, Alexandra A., and Joshua A. Tucker. “The Islamic State’s Information Warfare.” Journal of Language and Politics 17, no. 2 (2018): 258–80. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17005.sie
Date Posted
Oct 18, 2017
Authors
Area of Study
Abstract
How successful is the Islamic State’s online strategy? To what extent does the organization achieve its goals of attracting a global audience, broadcasting its military successes, and marketing the Caliphate? Using Twitter and YouTube search data, we assess how suspected ISIS accounts, sympathizers, and opponents behave across two social media platforms, offering key insights into the successes and limitations of ISIS’ information warfare strategy. Analyzing the tweet content and metadata from 16,364 suspected ISIS accounts, we find that a core network of ISIS Twitter users are producing linguistically diverse narratives, touting battlefield victories and depicting utopian life in the Caliphate. Furthermore, a dataset of over 70 million tweets, as well as analysis of YouTube search data, indicates that although pro-ISIS content spreads globally and remains on message, it is far less prolific than anti-ISIS content. However, this anti-ISIS content is not necessarily anti-extremist or aligned with Western policy goals.
Background
While jihadist groups have long used online forums and social media to broadcast their messages and exploits, the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s innovative online tactics were unprecedented in both their reach and efficiency. How successful was the Islamic State’s online strategy? To what extent did the organization achieve its goals of attracting a global audience, broadcasting its military successes, and marketing the Caliphate? Using Twitter and YouTube search data, collected throughout 2015 and early 2016, we assess how suspected ISIS accounts, sympathizers, and opponents behave across two social media platforms, offering key insights into the successes and limitations of ISIS’s information warfare strategy.
Study
Analyzing the tweet content and metadata from 16,364 suspected ISIS accounts, we find that a core network of ISIS Twitter users produced linguistically diverse narratives, touting battlefield victories and depicting utopian life in the Caliphate. Furthermore, a dataset of over 70 million tweets, as well as analysis of YouTube search data, indicates that although pro-ISIS content spread globally and remained on message, it was far less prolific than anti-ISIS content. However, this anti-ISIS content is not necessarily anti-extremist or aligned with Western policy goals.
Results
Our preliminary analysis of Twitter and YouTube search data reveals that even with increased monitoring, account suspension, and content deletion efforts by governments and social media companies, as of early 2016, ISIS was still successfully producing a coherent message and transmitting it to a global audience.