Global social media platforms struggle deleting ISIS supporters posts
“We promise black days for all crusader nations allied in their war against Islamic State,” tweeted Abu al-Walid, a few hours after terror attacks in Brussels.
Despite Twitter closing his account, Al-Walid kept posting supporting messages celebrating the actions of the notorious terror group from 464 different Twitter accounts.
Twitter has deleted more than 26.000 pro-Islamic State accounts in March 2016 only, after canceling more than 100.000 in September 2015. At the same time, ISIS militants kept re-opening accounts until they reached almost 21.000 new ones this spring. The habit of using Twitter to promote terror led to the decision of closing nearly 125.000 accounts since the summer of 2015, in a continuous effort to stop this kind of activities.
Main social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as hackers and private intelligence companies joined efforts to delete on-line accounts and posts that were found to spread ISIS propagandistic material. Terrorist supporters constantly counteract these efforts by immediately opening other accounts under same or different names.
The Islamic State militants’ on-line activity marks the spreading of an extremist ideology and can be used both as recruitment and financing methods. Moreover, official warns about spreading terror via virtual networks is a dangerous cyber-security threat strategy that helps ISIS control more than Iraq and Syria land territories.
