Social Media and Cyber-Terrorism

In 2014, a video entitled ‘A Message to America’ which directly addressed the US President, Barack Obama, was uploaded to video-sharing social networking site, YouTube.

This video depicted 40 year old American photo journalist James Foley. He was seen dressed in an orange jumpsuit kneeling on the floor at the hands of terrorist militants, Isis as he was violently beheaded. As the views grew, the video was rapidly circulated across all social media platforms, including, but not limited to, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Trending worldwide on twitter were terms such as #ISIS #JamesFoley and #IslamicState.

These videos and images have been produced by terrorist’s organisations with the intention of creating a state of fear throughout the western world, and that by sending out this message they create an illusion of their power and of intimidation. By continuing to distribute this message, you are promoting this statement, and giving them the publicity and attention they crave.

Not only do terrorist organisations use social media to spread their message of hate, they also use it as a recruitment tool, depending on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype to contact potential extremists all over the world.

Ashford, W (2015) Social media the main cyber terror threat facing the UK, says former MI6 officer[Blog] ComputerWeekly. Available from: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/4500255638/Social-media-the-main-cyber-terror-threat-facing-the-UK-says-former-MI6-officer

Imran, A (2014) Debating the term Cyber-Terrorism: Issues and Problems. Internet Journal of Criminology

The Telegraph Online (2014) How terrorists are using social media. 04 November. Available from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11207681/How-terrorists-are-using-social-media.html