ISIS’s online propaganda machine may be sophisticated, but they aren’t the only Iraqis on Twitter. Anti-ISIS voices are also making themselves heard:
While ISIS’s brutality — and its inclination to display it on every social media platform available — has been well covered, the Iraqi counter-campaign has garnered relatively little attention in Western outlets. But the #No2ISIS hashtag has already surged on Instagram and seems to be doing so on Twitter as well. Anti-ISIS protesters in London began using the hashtag earlier today on posters, while the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., Lukman Faily, has even appeared in photos holding placards with the hashtag.
The idea is simple: For many Iraqis, the quickest way to counter the ISIS propaganda machine is to make one themselves.
Meanwhile, Jillian York wishes Twitter would stop shutting down the jihadis’ propaganda accounts:
Is there any benefit to Twitter allowing these accounts to thrive? Anna Therese Day, an independent journalist who has been working on the ground in Syria since 2012, believes there is. “As a conflict journalist, the Internet, particularly social media, has been an invaluable tool in identifying and reaching out to sources and interview subjects,” says Day. “In the case of ISIS, I’ve personally used various Internet applications to stay in touch with them as well as other sensitive sources, and their public internet presence has informed a significant part of our understanding about the group’s recruitment, worldview, and motivations as well as how they relate to each other.”
It isn’t just journalists who see Twitter as an important channel for communication with these groups. In 2011, amid calls from Sen. Joseph Lieberman for Twitter to block al-Shabaab’s accounts, Kenyan military spokesman Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir tweeted that “Al Shabaab needs to be engaged positively and twitter is the only avenue.”
The Dish 