The practice of internet facilitated communications such as social media by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) has facilitated the fast rise of the extremist organization and changed the dynamics of global fight against terrorism. Nearly every continent in the world has received invitations to join the ranks of ISIS. Followers are not required to go to the warzone in the Middle East. Based purely on the online connections they have can they effectively distribute propaganda, recruit potential soldiers and establish their online presence.
As executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, meticulously states, “The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we've ever had”. It is precisely this undetermined factor of the Internet, that has relatively known supervision, that is the grounds for ISIS to create a podium that attracts attention of online users. The way in which terrorism has shaped the Internet has called for policymakers and government to address the growing nature of illicit use of the service that have directly aided extremism and radicalisation. In the online pandemonium of noise and a flood of information, ISIS have been able to strengthen their infrastructure due to their logistical, calculated acts. Having seen the advent of terrorist activities online, it is imperative to understand, at a time where the horrors of extremist activity are so readily available, how and why exactly it is that ISIS have become ‘social media pros’ in order to combat them.
The Internet can and has been exploited by terrorists for the purpose recruitment, propaganda, fund-raising and cyber-terrorism, proving itself to be a prized form of communication and incitement for the purposes of extremist radicalisation and ultra violence. The rise of the Islamic State has intensified this online strategy. ISIS has demonstrated greater social media sophistication and proven to be more strategic online. The scale and intensity of its online operations is much greater than previous terrorist groups.
Aims:
The dissertation examines how ISIS have become a new form of terrorism specifically due to cyberspace. It will also seek to refine understandings of what constitutes New Terrorism on the basis that that the ‘cyber’ element has set a precedence for ‘new waves’ of terrorism. It aims to clarify that it is not the technology itself that has catalyzed terrorist activity. Rather, it is ISIS specifically that have been one of, if not the, most successful terrorist organizations to exploit technological devices and the online arena to further the aims of the group as it seeks to spread and promote its ideology. The dissertation seeks to understand why ISIS has been the most prosperous at commandeering the use of the Internet and how this, in turn, has reshaped notions of terrorism in itself.
Literature review:
The zealous debate between the notion of ‘Old terrorism’ and ‘New Terrorism’ juxtaposes ideas of emerging threats and developing factors that have contributed towards terrorist acts. These include, but are not limited to proponents such as: political aims, tactics and motives. Cyberspace has allowed these factors to be received in a new light. The following literature review will be split into several sub-categories in order to highlight key areas of distinction between traditional notions of what constitutes as terrorism and New Terrorism. As Lacquer succinctly states, “terrorism is largely a matter of perception, of historical, social and cultural traditions, and of political calculus” (1999:36). Thus, an analytical evaluation of these factors is required to legitimately classify ISIS under paradigms of new terrorism due to cyberspace.
New terrorism has in large been shaped by the use of technology in activities conducted by malicious non-state actors. Concern over the illicit use of offensive information warfare (OIW) operations by terrorist organizations has caused concern for the national security of states (Valeri and Knights, 2000:15). The Internet contains a multitude of information essentially makes it a ‘digital library’ (Weimann, 2010), its resources ranging from books to governmental reports and resolutions, to blueprints of buildings. Information that aids terrorist plots are broadly available online and can help further their efforts to conduct attacks. The challenge presented by this is that basic information on buildings such as airports and nuclear power plants is the most easily accessible online and not only this, it is legally obtainable. This information strain presents a plethora of difficulties that did not exist before the creation of the Web as it would be counterproductive to remove information that has already been put out onto the Internet, but also there is a lack of control over who can and cannot view certain documents. The transparency that exists online is a ‘free for all’ for all users of the Internet, but terrorists have used this ability for data mining purposes that enhance their goals.
Terrorist justification for resorting to violence has been enforced by portraying ‘incumbent regimes as deaf to reason and incapable of reform’ (Tugwell,1986:6) when challenging Westphalian sovereignty. The propagandizing of the internet has allowed terrorists to further culminate their message online. Thus, former utopian visions of the Internet’s capabilities have been downcast by the calculated employment of the vehicle to promote global insurgency. Cyberspace has allowed terrorists to drive uncensored propaganda into the Western democratic sphere of media (Rampton, 2007). The current ability for terrorist propaganda to circumvent Western coercion and restrictive flak is in large due to the ability of the Internet to produce a duplicity of channels for information generated and manipulated by terrorists to reach a wider audience. The message that the terrorists wish to depict online has been seen through websites that frequently pop up in the cyber realm before either being taken down or replaced.
The evolution of how messages get across has an importantly alternative dynamic that supplements arguments that New Terrorism is distinctly different from old terrorism. Prior to the dawn of the Internet, the hope of terrorist’s cause and activity gaining exposure relied heavily upon notice from print media, radio and television firms (United States Institution of Peace, 2004:6). The Internet has allowed new era terrorism to evade selection thresholds that terrorists could not reach (ibid).
The use of unprecedented brutality has been displayed in the video content uploaded by terrorists, as the monopoly they now have over communication permits control over both the framework of their message and the content they propagate into cyberspace (Weimann, 2006:ix). This is coordinated both amongst themselves (via terrorist cells as a means of propaganda and morale boosting) and additionally in reaching audiences the terrorists themselves have specifically targeted. In instances such as Baghdad, viewers by choice preferred ‘real-life horror’ over pornography post Sadam-Hussein government (Hendawi, 2004). Terrorists have not only recognized the curiosity surrounding brutality, but they have also capitalized on the demand for videos and pictures of it. In Iraq, the trade of videos that include beheadings and assassinations are in demand, sold in open spaces such as local markets and the means of viewing have been converted to digital versatile disc (DVD), in order to make broadcasting accessible in more ways than one (Giroux, 2006:32). The rest of the world is not exempt from the oddity and pleasure of watching such violent content, as Europe and the U.S. have also been large contributes to the influx of viewership.
Access to this content does not stop short at points such as fax machines, photographs and digital video cameras (ibid:31). The Internet has provided remotely situated terrorists accessibility to an array of masses worldwide, thus widening the scope of individuals their brutality videos reach as it becomes digital information once released onto the Web. This was exemplified with the slaughter of U.S. construction contractor Eugene Armstrong, whose beheading was conducted by the Tawhid and Jihad militant group. The video was seen by more than 1 million Web-users (Russell, 2004). A modern medium such as the Internet paired with superannuated forms of punishments allows terrorists to possess stronger reins over their methods of communication (Anthony, 2011). The kinematics of past videos compared to more recent videos of killings have pointed to one thing: an increase in the brutality displayed. This is interchangeable with Peter R. Neumann’s third distinct outline of what constitutes New Terrorism, that of an increase in violence, specifically that of mass casualty attacks (2004), in that there have been noticeable and substantial trends in the era of New Terrorism. In this area, ‘media saturation’ is a key aspect of this change (ibid). The desensitization of seeing violence on television and through media screens such as websites and social media has pushed terrorists towards producing content with more lethality in order to affect audiences in a way that suits their objective (Neumann, 2009: 146). Therefore, we have seen how terrorists have ‘upped their ante’ to attract more attention.
Issues such as brutality circle arguments surround further debates about New Terrorism. Tactics currently employed by terrorists are less self-restrained, if at all, in the context of strategy. Previously calibrated acts by old terrorism are less observed in post-1990s terrorism, as brutality is unreservedly expressed under the wave of new terrorism in cyberspace. Old terrorism was paved by an understanding that if they exerted excessive brutality, they would be denied ‘the place they sought at the bargaining table’ (Benjamin and Simon: 2002). Aims of changing attitudes of audiences were established in order to attain their end goal (Coolsaet, 2008). In this way, the mostly clear-cut goals that belonged to old terrorism were linked to politically motivated desires. This is a stark contrast to the display of baseless incentives of new terrorism where strategic end objectives are lacking (Juergensmeyer,2000:158).
Point to point telecommunications has allowed ‘one-on-one’ communicative relationships between a terrorist and a potential recruit to speak. The Internet has provided a means for the transformation in the tactics employed by terrorists in persuading sympathizers to reach a level of radicalization that would make them more likely to join the terrorist militia force in question. The direct intersection between the two has been catalyzed; the access to one another made easier due to cyberspace which permits higher and direct levels of interactivity to prevail in its domain. Extremist terrorist factions have been enabled a capacity in which they may mobilize both political and religious support.
One of the key areas in which old and new terrorism have been compartmentalised is the organizational structure of terrorist groups. The Internet has altered the dynamic of New Terrorism’s networked edifice as communication between groups has become more seamless due to the interconnectivity the Internet provides them. Fundamentally, we can understand this to mean an intrinsic break down of the hierarchical assembly of terrorist groups that previously fell under archetype features of old terrorism. As Weimann (2010) puts it, the unstructured approach that is a “loose leaderless resistance” stands as an innate result of the nature of Internet communications. Tucker compliments this by stating that Information revolution has done several things: firstly, the reduction of communication costs that the Internet provides has led to the ability of functions to be developed and acted out outside of a coordinated hierarchy (Tucker, 2001:1). Being in the outer parameter of a pyramid organization in this way creates a larger pool of assets for terrorists to work with, as they can fundraise and mobilize resources (ibid:2). The dispersion that exists in networked structures allows flexibility online. As a result, the adaptability to situations where terrorist cells may find their online accounts shut down is a temporary set back for the network as a whole as other parties exist and are not necessarily geographically close as the online network does not depend on proximity. They are therefore, unaffected. A networked structure allows for numerous entities to work alongside one another in such a way that if one terrorist belonging to the group is disbanded, the others continue their online activities and still aim to achieve the common goal that links them together. With hierarchal structures, the intercalation that exists is set up in such a way that the structure could potentially close in on itself if certain members of the group are removed (forcibly or otherwise), whereas online networked terrorist groups can at in such a way that proliferation of more recruits is a likelier outcome. What’s more is that the idea that silo ‘lone-wolves’ in cyberspace exist is dispelled. Interoperability on the Web is more successful if they are unified as a ‘virtual pack’.