The advancements in the technology has brought a new era in terrorism where Social Networking sites have become a huge platform of communication with a wide range of usage from the transfer of message to propaganda and recruitment of new followers in terrorist groups. At the same time, during the terrorist attacks people use social Networking sites for the exchange of information, mobilizing, uniting and raising money for the victims. Due to the affordability, convenience, and broad reach of social media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, terrorist organisations have increasingly used social media to further & achieve their goals and spread their message. Attempts have been made worldwide by various governments and agencies to prevent the use of social media by terrorist organizations. There there can be various types of functions of social Networking websites depending upon the user, how they want to use it. It can be used in a positive or negative way depending on their state of mind.
Joe Lieberman, the Chairperson of the Senate Homeland Security Committee has been one of the person who has been demanding that social media companies should not permit terrorist groups to use their tools. In 2008, Lieberman and the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs issued a report titled "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat". The report stated that the internet is one of the main drivers of the terrorist threat to the United States and the whole world. In the report they stated that the terrorist groups are actively using the social networking sites daily and the use of these youth-dominated websites is increasing day by day and in the coming time it can prove as big threat to the security of the countries all around the world.
Namosha Veerasamy, a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria in 2012 represented the methods and functions that terrorists have come to rely on through the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure. This discussion sheds light on the technical and practical role that ICT infrastructure plays in the assistance of terrorism and various activities of terrorist groups around the world.
A March 2015 report from the Brookings Institution, an American think tank based on Think tank row in Washington, D.C, estimates that there at least about 46,000 Twitter accounts run by supporters of the Islamic State (also known as ISIL or ISIS), a group of violent extremists that currently occupies parts of Iraq and Syria. The group is also posting violent videos and recruiting materials on various other digital platforms, posing a dilemma for Silicon Valley companies like Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and others as well as traditional news publishers. For example, Facebook is in struggle with whether or not to allow videos of beheading to be viewed on its platform, and on March 16, 2015, again modified its 'community standards'
According to Professor Gabriel Weimann a professor of communication at the department of Haifa University, Israel. In his research (2011) New Media & New Terrorism (Freedom & Terrorism) shows how the new advances in the technology has changed online communication of terrorist from one-directional to bi-directional with various interactive capabilities like chat-rooms, social networking websites, video-sharing sites etc. He gave accounts on websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Flicker and various other websites and how the terrorists are using these websites actively for manipulating people, for recruiting people, for propaganda of their ideology and to raise funds for their organization. According to him because of the wide reach of social networking websites and a number of users, terrorist organisations opted this new platforms to spread terrorism and radicalize the violence.
Joseph Kunkle in 2015, a high level TSA/Homeland Security manager at the Office of Security Technology, Transportation Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. said that the social media framework of terrorist groups is targeting disenfranchised youth with complex, fictional information and creating grassroots terrorists within the U.S. borders. He also added that as a result of that foreign jihadists groups are enhancing their opportunities to attack U.S. by means of a multimedia, hybrid community participant strategy designed to influence the citizen extremists toward orchestrate ideological movements, violence, shape opportunities to recruit within the United States from various unfolding world events, and encourage domestic terrorists to set their own goals and take direct action with open-source and open-ended jihad at home.
Robert Mueller, the Director of FBI noted that the terrorists organizations are increasingly using the Internet to communicate with people, proselytize, conduct operational planning, train and to obtain financial and other logistic support and that is a growing and increasing concern. He also said that the increasing publicity about Internet computer security vulnerabilities may encourage terrorists organizations interest in attempting a possible computer network attacks or cyberattacks also.
The counterterrorism expert Dr. Anthony Bergin, the deputy director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says that, Increasingly, terrorist organizations and their sympathizers are using predominantly Western online communities like MySpace, Facebook, and Second Life, as well as their Arabic equivalents. He also noted that terrorist organizations view these youth-dominated social networking sites as recruitment tools 'in the same way a pedophile might look at those sites to potentially groom would-be victims.'
Robert Hannigan, the new head of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) which is a British intelligence and security organisation spoke about how ISIS terrorists in Iraq and Syria have 'embraced the web.' He also noted that terrorists are now able to hide their identities using encryption tools which were at one time only available to government agencies. ISIS has proved fluent in Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr Instagram, internet memes and other social media. He also added that their posting activity has ramped up during a recent offensive, reaching an all-time high of almost 40,000 tweets in one day as they marched into the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
According to Dr. Maura Conway journal from the department of Law and Government, Dublin City University in the journal 'Terrorism & the Internet: New Media-New threat.' The Core terrorist uses of the internet: Information Procedure. This refers to efforts by terrorists groups to engage in propaganda, publicity and ultimately psychology warfare. The advent of internet and the the world wide web in particular have significantly increased the opportunities for terrorist groups to attain publicity. It can also take the form of historical information, manifestos, profiles of leaders and so on. But the terrorists groups can also use the internet as a tool of psychologyical warfare through spreading misinformation, disseminating horrific images and delivering threat.