ISIS hijacking social media accounts is another evolving strategy that jihadist marketers use to get around content take-downs. The recent “Fuouaris* Upload” marketing campaign is the latest example the innovative spirit of jihadist guerilla marketing.
ISIS has lost physical territory and now focuses on expanding its digital territory. One of the operatives, operating under the nom de media “Luqmen Ben Tachafin” bragged of hijacking social media account as “war spoils,” saying: “They delete one account, and I replace it with 10 others.”
The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook by Moustafa Ayad of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue describes how ISIS is innovating to keep the media jihad thriving.
Hijacking ISIS Hijacking Social Media Accounts in Three Easy Steps
A jihadist media operative can follow easy steps to gain control of Facebook, WhatsApp, and other legitimate social media accounts:
- Hijack your phone number
Using TextNow of 2ndLine, the operative can use your phone number to set up text accounts they can control and access. - Hijack social media accounts attached to hijacked phone numbers
The operative then looks for social media accounts attached to the hijacked phone number. When he finds a match, he requests a password re-set code sent to the phone number that he now controls. He resets the password and now controls the social media account. - Post Islamic jihadist content
Now he can post whatever he wants on your account. Using swarmcasting, he can rapidly spread his message. A popular piece of content is a how- to guide to hijacking phone numbers and social media accounts.
Frustrating Social Media Algorithms
Islamic jihadist media operatives have studied the algorithms social media companies use to try to take down terrorist content. They have developed some low-tech ways to frustrate those efforts:
- Use random punctuation in the middle of words so that they algorithm cannot read them. A human easily understands the meaning of “ki.ll,” but the robot is baffled.
- Blur branding or apply distorting video effects provided by the social media company. The black flag of ISIS is so well-known that it is easily recognizable to human eyes even when blurred. Again, the robot is flummoxed.
- Sandwich jihadist content within innocuous content. In one case, ISIS began its hour-long video with a few seconds of news content from France 24. The social media algorithm is effectively fooled.
Watch Parties in Real Time
Islamic jihadists exploit “live” functions on social media to create virtual events. Using hijacked social media accounts, they share links inviting people to “watch parties” for real-time consumption of terror content on various accounts and platforms. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue report references the April 7 showing of The Grit of War – The Bloodshed of Mosul. Luqmen Ben Tachafin says of himself: “He does not tire. He does not bore”.
Swarmcasting Still Works
Operating in a “hostile environment” is not new for Islamic jihadists, as we explain in our book Weaponized Marketing, available here. Abu Mus’ab al-Suri was an al Qaeda leader who understood how to continue the fight, even on the run, “moving from one hideout to another with the enemies of God chasing us.”
ISIS has no problem thriving moving from social media platforms and accounts with speed and agility. Al-Suri urged replacing a central hierarchy with what marketers call co-creation and crowd sourcing in his influential book, The Call for a Global Islamic Resistance.
The Fuouaris Upload jihadists shared content rapidly across accounts, spreading across platforms that included ISIS media sites, Telegram, WhatsApp, ISIS stand-alone websites and SoundCloud. The spread happens in seconds, yet the take-downs take months. The report found it took three months to remove 70% of Fuouaris Upload” accounts.
The network, in classic swarmcast behavior, evolves ahead of the censors’ algorithms to multiply, spread shift content across accounts. Much of the content is shifting off highly monitored English and Arabic language platforms to those in less used languages. Islamic jihadists and members of their audience laugh at futile efforts to shut them down.
It is nearly impossible to measure reach, as any one node of a swarmcast network reaches anywhere from three or four people to 34,000 or more. It is always one, two, or dozens of steps ahead of the censors.
* Fuouaris comes from the word furusiyya, which were chivalrous knights from the dawn of Islam who rode into battle inspired by Allah.