1/30/2024 0 Comments Vox youtube rise of isis![]() As we have seen for the last two decades, when terrorists are banished from of one place online, they recuperate elsewhere. These propaganda machines are far too massive, sophisticated, and adaptive for isolated approaches across the tech industry-regardless of how effective one company’s efforts at content removal has been. SITE’s five-month study documented the use of over 100 platforms, from major players like OneDrive, Google Photos, and Dropbox to those you’d be forgiven for having never heard of. While major platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are often widely cited as platforms that have been exploited in ISIS and al-Qaeda’s outreach, it is often understated how far these terrorist groups’ tentacles reach. Based on that data, Google Photos, Dropbox, and Google Drive are the three top platforms used by ISIS and al-Qaeda to share audio and video with their affiliates and supporters. Of those, nearly 2,000 were created using Google Photos and Google Drive. Despite the drastic drop in YouTube use by these groups between 20, Google Drive saw only a small decrease in use (148 to 124 URLs), while Google Photos saw a major increase (39 to 119 URLs).īolstering that point, SITE’s latest study identified 16,219 URLs specifically for video and audio files by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their supporters. AQAP channels, for example, no longer feature the platform at the beginning of their URL compilations.īut YouTube’s victories against ISIS and al-Qaeda must be evaluated in the context of the entire tech industry-including other Google services. Other al-Qaeda affiliates have demonstrated the same tendency to steer away from YouTube. The measures included increased use of technology, ramped up human intelligence, updated content policies, and some ambitious approaches to countering the content itself. In a June 2017 blog post, Google General Counsel Kent Walker acknowledged YouTube's role in the dissemination of such information and stated that the company would be taking concrete steps to improve its terrorist content removal efforts. In link compilations issued by terrorist propagandists, the first item listed was often a YouTube URL. In recent years, YouTube was among the most recurrent platforms used by terrorist groups. ![]() In a May 2017 study, I detailed the ways groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda were sneaking their media onto YouTube and the massive extent to which they were doing so. YouTube’s problem worsened with the rise of ISIS and its resilient propaganda machine. Rita Katz is the Executive Director and founder of the SITE Intelligence Group, the world’s leading non-governmental counterterrorism organization specializing in tracking and analyzing the online activity of the global extremist community.
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