Some Instagram sellers are exploiting the gray areas in local laws to promote fake goods. (David Paul Morris / Bloomberg)
PARIS - Researchers say Islamic State supporters have found an ephemeral
platform to share propaganda: Using Instagram's "stories" feature, which causes
posts to disappear in 24 hours.
With successive military defeats in Iraq
and Syria, many of its recruits dead or on the run and its Twitter and Facebook
accounts being shut down, the group's propaganda drive is increasingly homemade.
But a recent analysis found the networks of people inspired by the group remain
strong elsewhere.
The software analysis identified more than 50,000
accounts linked to Islamic State supporters posting Instagram stories, according
to Andrea Stroppa, who is part of the software research group called Ghost Data.
Of those 50,000, just over 10,000 are described as strongly-linked to IS — they
follow core IS accounts and are followed back, and about 30 percent of their
posted content is about the group.
"They send a message that they know
will disappear but they know who the audience is. They are using these stories
because they know it is a safe channel to share information," said Stroppa, who
is also affiliated with the World Economic Forum.
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There is no sign that
the majority of the posts are from Islamic State's central propaganda units —
rather, they tend to be personal snapshots with little production value, like a
clip of the IS trademark black flag, or a bloody photo showing what happens to
"traitors."Instagram is owned by Facebook, which came under pressure to close
accounts linked to Islamic State supporters after governments said it was being
used as a propaganda and recruitment tool. At the height of Islamic State's
recruitment drive in the West in 2014 and 2015, the group's propaganda was of a
quality unseen in other extremist groups. On Wednesday, the UN General
Assembly was focusing on extremist content on the internet, with social media
front and center.
"They send a message that they know will disappear but they know who the audience is."
Andrea Stroppa
Ghost Data
In a statement Wednesday, Instagram said "There is no
place for terrorists, terrorist propaganda, or the praising of terror activity
on Instagram, and we work aggressively to remove content or an account as soon
as we become aware of it."The company said its policy prohibits terrorist
content, and that it has specialized teams that work to stop the spread of such
posts from its platform.
Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on
Extremism at George Washington University, said the crackdown by Twitter and
Facebook is a big reason why the content is moving elsewhere.
On places
like Instagram and Tumblr, "you are usually looking at supporter-driven
creations," he said. "I just don't see guys in Raqqa building Instagram
stories."Nathan Patin, who analyzes extremist social media for the website
Bellingcat and reviewed the report and database, said the ability to scrape
social media for geotags offers new insight into Islamic State supporters. IS
supporters still rely primarily upon the encrypted app Telegram, but Patin said
they "will use every platform that's available." The difference with Instagram
stories, he added, is that they're public and in "one post they're posting
Islamic State propaganda and in the next they're posting at a restaurant that's
geotagged."The analysis bolsters a conclusion this week by Policy Exchange, a
British think tank, that Islamic State's ability to reconstitute its online
networks is undiminished. Policy Exchange found that Islamic State places a
premium on speed and agility to move between platforms. It also said IS output
of online activity remains consistent, even when the group is under pressure
militarily, by finding a "dispersed and resilient form."AP Technology Writer
Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed.