Terrorists Tweak Social Media Tactics

Stand for Israel  |  April 23, 2019

Modern technology sure has its benefits — from keeping in touch with friends and family to interacting with our communities of faith, social media has brought us closer together in many ways. Alas, it has brought terrorists closer together, as well, despite attempts to monitor and track them down. The Jerusalem Post’s Rossella Tercatin writes about how groups like Hamas and Hezbollah have evolved their online strategies to skirt counterterrorism alerts they once might have triggered:

In the past, groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah would publish videos and posts featuring explicitly violent content and threats. Nowadays, they are careful to craft their posts so that they won’t trigger any counter-terrorism tools of social media platforms, while still conveying their message nonetheless.

This approach has permitted them to grow their online presence largely unchecked.

“In the real world, terrorist groups have proven highly resilient to counter-terrorism efforts, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the same dynamic is true on social platforms like Facebook. The more we do to detect and remove terrorist content, the more shrewd these groups become…”

Contrary to ISIS and Al Qaeda, organizations such Hamas and Hezbollah are political forces in their territories. According to the New York Times report, this represents a confusing factor for social media networks – even though Facebook, Twitter and others typically follow the US designation of terrorist groups (which includes both Hamas and Hezbollah).

The inadequate reactions to social media activity by the two groups have been especially frustrating to Israel…