Gifted: Social Media

"They definitely have an electronic army behind them."
Ray Kafity, vice-president, FireEye for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa

"It's hard to wage a war with ideas online. When we talk about monitoring or controlling social media it is like trying to control air, and this of course is hard."
Abdulaziz Al-Mulhem, spokesman, Saudi Ministry of Information and Culture

"The most important thing is to be there.And that's something that I really do encourage governments to do, not to leave the space but to enter the space."
Elizabeth Linder, Facebook

The Isil post encourages would-be attackers to target Times Square in New York Photo: Alamy

Hard to believe, the power and prestige and contactability inherent in social media. The very idea that everyone has to have an on-line presence, to personally engage themselves with a site like Facebook so that anyone interested can look them up, assess their presence, establish contact -- or not -- and buy into the culture of social-visibility without which life is not complete, is hard enough to understand for anyone with an ounce of brains and commonsense. But that businesses, corporations, government entities, and now terror groups also indulge is mind-boggling.

But in a celebrity-obsessed, entitled-me ingrained culture, that appears to be a natural accommodation or resignation to what's popular and which social-contract expectations are to be met. If you're not on Facebook, why then you simply don't exist. Countries like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf State and Middle Eastern countries have yet to clue in to that little factoid made urgently important because of the influence it has on the public consumption of ideas and presence.

Evidently, its wrongwrongwrong to shut oneself out of the experience. I Facebook therefore I am. Well, it seems to work for Islamist terrorists. Through Twitter and Facebook and other social media sites without which contact no self-respecting individual can now afford to exist, propaganda is circulated and recruits to such important causes as Islamist responses to 'Islamophobia', Jews and Crusaders would not be as hugely possible as is turning out to be.

Militants from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) taking aim at captured Iraqi soldiers Photo: AP

Want to experience the thrill of witnessing a real, live beheading, and actually handling the results? Sign on, as pious Muslims determined to prove to Allah the Merciful that it wasn't only Prophet Mohammad who was capable of growing the worldwide ummah by violent conquest. It's the sole, reliable way to get the message across. Feel drawn to adventure with a soupcon of danger just to make the thrill all that more exciting come on down and we'll outfit you in this nifty black gear and train you in explosives-production and the art of sawing off heads.

Here's what doesn't appear to work: Saudi Arabia's council of religious scholars last week issued an Arabic statement through the state-operated news agency firmly denouncing terrorism, calling on citizens to support the fight against groups like the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. They're not the only religious authorities evidently who have committed in this way. Sunni Muslim authorities in Egypt have also issued similar government-backed statements. The kicker being, of course, that wealthy Sunnis in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have encouraged and funded these Islamists.

But does the message work? Are people hearing it and being convinced? Seems not. On the other hand, there's the Islamic State group with its slick media arm producing videos with interviews, graphics and jihadist hymns in the background, produced with Arabic and English subtitles. As entertainment it's unparallelled. Where else in quasi real-time can you see a beheading, an interview explaining its necessity, and an invitation to join the courageous Islamist jihadis awaiting your presence?

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Jihadis now tweet live from the field of combat, offering real-time updates and at the same time quipping knowledgeably with both detractors and supporters on line. They're beyond mere cool. Thousands of foreign fighters who have joined the Islamic State, drawn to it from cyberspace, have brought their Internet skills with them, and they're most helpful in the use of social media for fundraising.



This undated file image posted on Aug. 27, 2014, by the Raqqa Media Center of the Islamic State group, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows a fighter of the Islamic State group waving their flag from inside a captured government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa. (AP Photo/Raqqa)

According to Fadi Salem, Dubai-based, and a researcher on Internet governance in the Arab world, the response of governments in the Middle East has been to "control, block and censor as much as possible", she pointed out. "Very few governments viewed this [social media] as an opportunity rather than a risk." Iraq's government, for example shut off access to the Internet when the ISIS group swept across the country's north and west, including Mosul

Despite blocking mobile messaging apps and social media platforms, Iraq's authorities had failed in their efforts, to block seven websites allied with or supportive of the Islamic State group, revealed a study by The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. As swiftly as old accounts are reported and removed, new ones crop up. Facebook claims to have 71 million active monthly users in the Middle East with youth between 15 and 29 making up 70% of users in the Arab region.

The U.S. State Department launched a "Think Again Turn Away" campaign on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter with Arabic and English video reflecting the style of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The popularity of that effort pales in comparison to that of the Islamic State's videos with its images of mass shootings and beheadings succeeding in striking fear into the minds of those it targets and engaging the admiration of those it appeals to on the basis of its fighters' bravery and piety.

The 55-minute video Flames of War featuring images of exploding tanks and wounded American soldiers appears to be a runaway success. Idealizing the fanatical Islamists as "warriors", and appealing to the sensibilities of the adventurous and alienated youth in Islam's far-off reaches in Europe and North America. None of the videos rate the popularity of the beheadings of two American journalists and a British aid worker, however.

Just so very compelling, enticing the persuaded to go and join in the war games and to try to outdo one another in proudly fanciful atrocities.