By Arutz Sheva Staff, May 8, 2015
Experts tell Senate the US is losing against the online recruitment war, as senator calls paltry US efforts 'laughable.'
The US government is struggling to counter the Islamic State (ISIS) group's fast-paced online propaganda, which played a role in inspiring a failed attack in Texas this week on an exhibit of caricatures of Mohammed, the founder of Islam.
One of the two gunmen had been in frequent contact via Twitter with an American terrorist from the ISIS group who was well known to federal authorities, according to groups that monitor extremists online as reported byAFP.
The failed attempt to storm the cartoon exhibition in a Dallas suburb could be a "harbinger" of things to come, as the jihadist online blitz seeks to encourage violence from a distance, said author Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation non-profit group.
The lightning tempo and vast scale of the ISIS group's social media campaign poses a daunting challenge, particularly for a government bureaucracy ill-equipped to respond quickly or to experiment, experts said Thursday.
ISIS can rely on "a very large number of people" to promote their message online and "it can afford to have 2,000 people who tweet 150 times a day," said J.M. Berger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"It can afford to have a ratio of two or three recruiters to every one potential recruit who might carry out a lone wolf attack," Berger, who has researched extremists' use of social media, told the Senate Homeland Security committee.
The United States or others opposed to ISIS are losing the war in social media and will need to deploy similar numbers to have an effect, said Berger, author of "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam."
Although the ISIS jihadists tried to take credit for Sunday's attack, Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said the group had not ordered the assault but had nevertheless "inspired" the men to carry it out.
He said it was "concerning that there are individuals like this who draw their inspiration" from the group.
More: www.israelnationalnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.