Open AccessSpreading Propaganda in Cyberspace: Comparing Cyber-Resource Usage of Al Qaeda and ISIS
Author(s) -
Kyung-Shick Choi,
Claire Seungeun Lee,
Robert Cadigan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of cybersecurity intelligence and cybercrime/international journal of cybersecurity intelligence and cybercrime
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2578-3297
pISSN - 2578-3289
DOI - 10.52306/01010418zdcd5438
Subject(s) - cyberspace , al qaeda , terrorism , social media , ideology , internet privacy , political science , the internet , advertising , media studies , sociology , computer science , world wide web , business , law , politics
Terrorists in cyberspace are increasingly utilizing social media to promote their ideologies, recruit new members, and justify terrorist attacks and actions. This study explores the ways in which types of social media, message contents, and motives for spreading propaganda take shape in cyberspace. In order to empirically test these relations, we created a dataset with annual terrorism reports from 2011 to 2016. In our global cyberterrorism dataset, we used and connected cyber-resources (Facebook, online forum, Twitter mentions, websites, and YouTube videos) and legal documents of individual cases that were mentioned in the reports. The results show that YouTube videos were used primarily for propagating certain ideologies and for recruiting members for Al Qaeda and ISIS. Al Qaeda-affiliated cyberterrorists used YouTube videos as both individual sources and embedded sources for Facebook and Twitter, whereas ISIS-affiliated cyberterrorists predominantly used YouTube videos and Twitter posts.