In his recent speech in Washington Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull noted the need for agile information operations across social media by the Iraqi government in order to counter Islamic State (IS) propaganda and provide an alternative narrative around events in Iraq and Syria, for both global and regional audiences. The US government is attempting to build consensus with Silicon Valley on potential counter-terrorism responses across social media. We're exploring the development of innovative possibilities in this space.
IS's extensive use of Twitter has been documented (particularly by Berger and Morgan, 2015). Studies (such as those of Berger and Morgan, 2015; Shaheen's 2015 study for NATO; Fisher 2015) using network analysis to investigate the structures employed to support IS information operations point to the self-repairing, decentralised networks that enable the persistent presence of IS propanganda online.
As I explore our data I'm finding similar patterns; multiple user accounts creating redundancy for quick repair in the network, "shout outs" to re-engage followers, hashtags as the focus of community/network formation.
I'm based in Australia so was aware that the Australian Open tennis tournament - one of world tennis' most prestigious events - began this week in Melbourne. As I explored the subset of Islamic State Twitter accounts forming the data set for our project, I noticed that one account was attempting to hijack (amongst others) the Australian Open hashtag to distribute a military report.
The official Australian Open Twitter account uses #ausopen but #AustralianOpen is getting significant traction. What this highlights is the IS tactic of piggy-backing on both events of global interest and the social media communities (networked publics) that form around these events (such as the World Cup). I've noticed this strategy being employed in our data set, with all sorts of incongruous pop culture hashtags being used to extend the reach of (often gruesome) IS media products.
IS creates media content for a range of different audiences (local, regional, global), with different strategic goals. Instances of this tactic of co-opting high-profile event hashtags provide an indication of the content the IS aims to disseminate to global audiences. This in turn helps us to understand what the group wishes to project, to amplify (eg in this instance, effective military capability). This kind of analysis can offer insights that assist in degrading the capacity of IS information operations.
No comments:
Post a Comment