Impact of social media on contemporary terrorism and counter-terrorism

This article explores the impact of social media on contemporary terrorism and counter-terrorism efforts. It discusses how terrorist groups use social media for recruitment and communication, as well as the role of social media in spreading awareness and gathering information about terrorist attacks. The article also highlights the use of social media by counter-terrorism experts and the potential for social media to aid in preventing and responding to terrorist incidents.

Running Head: PICT113 TERRORISM
PICT113 TERRORISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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Table of Contents
Impact of social media on contemporary terrorism and counter terrorism..........................................2
References.............................................................................................................................................5

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Impact of social media on contemporary terrorism and
counter-terrorism
The application of social media is easy process of finding information about the terrorism.
Due to affordability, convenience and wider reach of social media channels such as terrorist
groups, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have increasingly implemented the social media to
attain their goals as well as spreading their message. Along with this, attempts have been
developed by different governments as well as agencies to prevent the use of social media
through terrorist companies. Terror group practices social media channels to recruit the
members and collect intelligence (Combs, 2017).
Terror group’s practice social media as it is cheap provides quick, broad dissemination of
message and permits for imaginative communication with the audience without filtering and
selectivity of a wide range of news outlets. Along with this, social media channel permits the
terror group for engaging with the network. In previous times, the terror group releases their
message through intermediaries but in contemporary time, social media channels permit
terror groups to release message directly among the targeted audience and communicate with
their audience in real time. Along with this, “theatre of terror” is a term, used in
contemporary time by terrorists where, social media is used to endorse the theatrical such as
nature of premeditated terror (Farwell, 2014).
HSMPress is also using Twitter as a social media platform through which, experts advertised
on broadcasting and engaging in interaction with people. Hence, in contemporary time, social
media could be highly used to deal with the real human being with real ideas such as
hypocritical, violent ideas as well as albeit boastful. Along with this, Al-Qaeda is recognized
as one of the terror groups that are used by social media extensively. Social media is also
applied by ISIS and other terror groups for recruiting foreign people to join the terrorist
cause. In certain cases, these new recruits are sent back to their home nation in order to

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perform the terrorist’s attacks. Others who cannot physically move towards the terrorists'
activities in their own nations, propaganda is used to expose through online (Williams and
Burnap 2015). It demonstrates how ISIS can brainwash and expand on opinions that
individuals may have about terrorism.
Social media is transforming the speed of how an individual learns regarding terrorist attack
and the manner they react. In the contemporary period, first data to the public regarding
incidents is come through social media modes like Twitter as compared to traditional news
outlets. Social media is becoming an essential data sources for the public while breaching the
terror act (Awan, 2017). There were more than 800 tweets a minute regarding the Lee Rigby
murder at its top. Social media is gradually more essential to persuade the understanding of
the public about such attack and about its consequences. The practices of social media are
becoming implication for first response through police to such terrorist attack due to the
witness of posts on twitter (Fuchs, 2017).
The social media could play an imperative role in collecting information about terrorism.
The social network is being an effective source of information for the government as it
facilitates to comprehend when a terror act occurs. Social media is effective for increasing the
awareness of attacks and supports to make a reliable decision in the context of the situation
(Weimann, 2014). In addition, it is also found that the counter-terrorism experts use the
social media and address the location of terrorist by their tweet and message convey through
any sources of social media and decline the probability of terrorism (Nacos, 2016). Thus, it
can be said that social media is an imperative part of the counter-terrorism department for
solving their issue in a systematic manner and leads to get a reliable decision. The
Counterterrorism department could also consider different kinds of factors due to improving
the terrorism situation from country like Prepare, Protect, Prevent and Pursue, and Post-
incident. From the application of such factors, the department is capable to manage the

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secondary attacks as it could be associated with the community tension, public reassurance. It
is also evaluated that social media means the community could attract on the terrorism
community by addressing the information about them and mitigate it easily (Klausen, 2015).
There is a certain method which could be used by the counter terrorism department at the
time of using the social media named Theory-driven methods of data analysis and statistical
methods. This method support to the counter terrorism department to determine the reason of
terrorism on a particular area and who are the part of it. It could be effective in making the
decision in the favour of terrorism (Combs, 2017).

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References
Awan, I., 2017. Cyber-extremism: Isis and the power of social media. Society, 54(2), pp.138-
149.
Combs, C.C., 2017. Terrorism in the twenty-first century. Routledge.
Farwell, J.P., 2014. The media strategy of ISIS. Survival, 56(6), pp.49-55.
Fuchs, C., 2017. Social media: A critical introduction. Sage.
Klausen, J., 2015. Tweeting the Jihad: Social media networks of Western foreign fighters in
Syria and Iraq. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 38(1), pp.1-22.
Nacos, B., 2016. Mass-mediated terrorism: Mainstream and digital media in terrorism and
counterterrorism. Rowman & Littlefield.
Weimann, G., 2014. New terrorism and new media (Vol. 2). Washington, DC: Commons Lab
of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Williams, M.L. and Burnap, P., 2015. Cyberhate on social media in the aftermath of
Woolwich: A case study in computational criminology and big data. British Journal of
Criminology, 56(2), pp.211-238.