Research On Terrorist Activities On Social Media In European And American Countries

In recent years, social media has been popular around the world. According to Alexa(an American company), there are four social media sites listed as 2015’s top 10 sites most often visited. They are Facebook, Youtobe, Wiki and Twitter. Moreover, Facebook takes the second place and Youtobe the third. However, with the popularity of social media, terrorist groups and individuals also start to use social media as a powerful weapon to get engaged in terrorist activities. There are two major reasons why they make use of social media as their major weapon. On one hand, their traditional communication places have been destroyed as well as their websites. On the other hand, social media has its own unique advantages, such as low costs, flexibility, widely-used and interactivity.Terrorist groups and individuals want to employ social media to achieve the following goals: i) as the advertising platform to disseminate their propaganda and extremist thoughts; ii) disseminate horrible pictures and videos to create panic among the whole society; iii) recruit potential members; iv) data mining; v) fund raising. For example, ISIS(The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is very good at using social media as their major tool, especially the mainstream social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtobe. ISIS disseminates its public magazine “Dabiq” through Twitter and Youtobe with emphasis on its interpretation of Islam. In addition, the members of ISIS even post their photos on twitter to attract their peers to join them. According to Pew Research Center, over 12,000 foreign fighters from nearly 81 countries join Syria civil war up to June, 2014 with the majority of them join ISIS. The success of ISIS in recruiting European and American young men is clearly seen.It is undeniable that social media makes the recruiting process easier and more effective because it allows terrorist groups and individuals to approach a wider group of audience and act proactively. Under the influence of social media, the radicalization of young men in Europe and America is rather evident. Radicalized young men would leave their own county to join the jihad or launch lone wolf attacks. According to Pew Research Center, most of the foreign fighters who join the Syria civil war are between the age of 18 and 29, with some of them even between the age of 15 and 17. Most of them are the second or third generation of Muslim immigration to Europe and America. Their radicalization shall be attributed to two major reasons. The first one is the identity crisis they are now suffering in western counties. A certain amount of European and American Muslims think their first identity is Muslim and the second identity is a citizen of their living country. The gap between the two identities disturbs those European and American Muslims which often leads them to pursue a more pure “Muslim country” to gain a sense of belonging as well as identity. More importantly, such identity crisis is strengthened by social media with more and more terrorist groups using social media as their major platform to advertise their propaganda. Therefore, more and more young men in Europe and America are radicalized by such information on social media or brainwashed by certain terrorist recruiters through one to one communications on social media.When faced with this trend, all classes of European and American society react actively and join the anti-terrorism on social media army. At first, nations like America and UK start to develop law systems against online terrorism and intend to criminate the behavior of providing help on line to terrorist groups. Secondly, social media companies also take various measures to respond to terrorist information on social media. For instance, amend the user service agreement, build and perfect the user report system and enhance their technology of banning terrorist related information. In addition, civil organizations and individuals also take some actions. For instance, civil organization “anonymous” openly challenged ISIS and the victims and defectors tell their own stories. The United Nations and European Union also take some actions. They call meetings and release resolutions to bring together major countries to address the issue of terrorist activities on social media.In China, internet is under strong supervision of our government. Therefore, the phenomenon of abundant terrorist accounts as well as terrorist information on social media is unlikely to happen in China. However, according to a report released by Chinese National Internet and Information Office on June, 2014, all the suspects who engaged in violent terrorist cases in China have watched videos or listened to radios concerning terrorism. Besides disseminating terrorism, these videos and radios contributed to terrorist activities carried out in China by teaching people how to conduct terrorist attacks, such as how to use guns, how to make bombs and carry out explosion.This dissertation mainly researches on terrorist activities take place on mainstream social media in Europe and America and further analyzes terrorists’ use of social media, which helps people learn more about this new trend. Furthermore, this dissertation analyzes and categorizes the counter measures taken by nations, social media companies, civil organizations and individuals and therefore provides beneficial thoughts to prevent similar terrorist activities occur on Chinese social media.