ARGUMENT: Militias & social mediaAfter the Islamic State: Social Media and Armed Groups

The Islamic State is often credited with pioneering the use of social media in conflict, having created a global brand that drew between 20,000 and 40,000 volunteers from at least 85 countries. Social media served as a key recruiting tool, source of fundraising, and platform for disseminating graphic propaganda to a global audience. Laura Courchesne and Brian McQuinn write in War on the Rocks that the Islamic State perfected tactics and strategies already widely used by hundreds of other armed groups.

For example, al-Shabab pioneered social media use by self-described jihadist groups, using Twitter and micro-blogging platforms before the Islamic State. But its regional focus in the Horn of Africa meant that its efforts did not show up on the West’s radar until the Westgate Mall attack in 2013. Unlike the Islamic State — which pursued recruits from around the world — al-Shabab appealed to regional and local audiences. As a result, it was largely ignored by the West and social media companies.

According to our research with the Digital Traces of Conflict Project, there are over 1,456 armed groups operating in civil wars in Mali, Libya, and Syria. Almost all use social media to target regional and local audiences, but vary in their choice of platform. Social media is also providing novel and underexplored funding channels. Studying how terrorist groups “successfully” use social media will help predict characteristics that will define the future of conflict. The next global threat to exploit social media will emerge from the groups currently avoiding detection or attention by platforms. In response, the United States and its partners should build new models, grounded in the full range of armed group social media usage, if they hope to anticipate the future of malicious online activity by armed groups.

Courchesne and Brian McQuinn add that in the past decade, social media has transformed conflict, forever changing how civil wars are fought, funded, and studied. Insurgent groups have announced their formation, boasted of their victories, recruited new members, and solicited funds on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They note, however, that at the same time, the unprecedented attention paid to the social media efforts by groups like the Islamic State “has created what we think is a false impression of how armed groups use social media. Specifically, there is the idea that successful use of social media by an armed group results in a global brand and international attention. Rather, most armed groups successfully use social media at local and regional levels, escaping the purview of the West and social media platforms.”

They conclude:

The West’s fixation on the Islamic State and its use of social media (followed more recently by a shift to far-right extremists) ignores how the vast majority of armed groups across the world use social media. Most armed groups use social media away from global attention, avoiding action by the U.S. companies or Western governments. The next Islamic State will not use the same online playbook. Anticipating future threats in the online environment requires monitoring armed groups’ emerging social media strategies adapted to avoiding detection while targeting niche audiences.