A successful cyber strategy combines hard and soft power
UNIPATH STAFF WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM DR. DINOS ANTHONY KERIGAN-KYROU
Terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Da’ish have caused misery to vast numbers of people across the Middle East and farther afield. Public executions, bombings, torture, human trafficking, and violent exploitation of women and children are just some of their crimes. Their method of communication, however, especially to those they fool into volunteering, has been effective. Young men and some young women have been traveling from North America and Europe to Iraq and Syria to fight for Da’ish. Moreover, Da’ish’s propaganda has urged “lone wolf” terrorists to commit atrocities in countries outside the Middle East and Central and South Asia in places such as Boston, Brussels, Copenhagen, London, Ottawa and Paris.
These terrorists use popular social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to reach the masses; it’s how they propagated the horrific video showing the murder of Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh early in 2015. “Hard power” approaches to Da’ish’s social media strategies — basically shutting down or suspending social media sites — have occurred, but serve only as short-term solutions. For instance in April 2015, Twitter suspended about 10,000 accounts linked to Da’ish believed to be tweeting violent threats, highlighting the company’s responsiveness to legitimate requests from militaries and law enforcement.
These attempts to forcibly limit terrorist propaganda are one part of a strategy but can only go so far. Indeed, as a practical matter, governments and militaries would find it difficult to monitor and regulate everything terrorists post. As a result, Internet policing has been left largely to the media companies themselves. YouTube, owned by Google, told the author that it encourages online debate but has clear policies of not “crossing a line,” particularly with regard to threats and hateful, harmful or dangerous content. YouTube has round-the-clock enforcement teams reviewing flagged videos, and those violating the site’s policies are removed.
YouTube reviews more than 100,000 flagged videos per day and in 2014 removed 14 million videos for violating polices. Videos posted with a clear news or documentary purpose may remain on YouTube, provided appropriate warnings and age-restrictions are applied. Other sharing sites such as LiveLeak abet terrorists by offering another platform for them to broadcast their message of violence for all to see. We rely perhaps much more than we realize on the content platforms to self-regulate. Responsible companies such as Google do this, although we have no control over thousands, possibly millions, of irresponsible sites, particularly those on the “Dark Web,” Tor network or “Deep Web.”
Softer approach
Even before Da’ish appeared, many leaders stressed the importance of communication as a tool to counter enemy propaganda. The importance of these “soft power” approaches as part of counterterrorism strategy requires dynamism and effective communication.
“This is a fight inside of Islam where everybody comes together against these outlaws, so to speak, together,” His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of Jordan told CNN during a March 2015 interview. “And there’s a short-term part of this, which is the military part of the issue, there is the medium part, which is the security element of it, and then there’s a long-term element of this, which is obviously the ideological one.”
The importance of the ideological fight, or countering the enemy’s propaganda — especially with the speed in which information can be transmitted — makes the fight all the more complex. Like Jordan, the United Kingdom understands this component well. Since 2011, it has used a strategy called “Prevent” aimed at dissuading individuals from becoming involved in nonviolent extremist ideologies, widely recognized as a gateway to terrorism. This work is conducted within at-risk communities and coordinated by the central government. It is critical to continue tackling extremism of all kinds, according to the Quilliam Foundation, a U.K. charity that aims to challenge extremist narratives while advocating pluralistic, democratic alternatives. Although supporting Prevent, Quilliam argues that the strategy should focus on the development of narratives and counternarratives.
Indeed, al-Qaida (AQ) and now Da’ish have been described as “parasitic” organizations; they take an issue they have no interest in — poverty, corruption or ethnic tension — and then pretend to “own” that issue. For all the evil of AQ, Da’ish, al-Shabab and Boko Haram, they do a very effective job of persuading people that they are on the side of those who suffer from corruption, poverty and oppression, even if the audience doesn’t agree with the organizations’ extreme violence. Of course, this supposed concern for the poor is nonsense, but countering that narrative remains difficult.
One tool the enemy is using to garner attention is slick, high-quality graphics and videos. Da’ish has obviously recruited people skilled in media production to achieve their goals, Dr. Ibrahim Negm, a consultant to Egypt’s Grand Mufti, told Asharq al-Awsat. Da’ish “realized from the outset the importance of the use of the media and technology to its advantage, to use it in its war in the same manner it uses its troops and artillery on the ground,” he said.
Egypt’s Al-Azhar University and the Dar Al-Ifta organization and its Marsad Al-Fatawa Department are working together to counter terrorist propaganda. They monitor, identify and counter Da’ish ideology. One example of this is Dar Al-Ifta’s Facebook page, which was launched in 2014 to expose the fallacies and lies of Da’ish. They share what Da’ish attempts to hide: the murder of innocent civilians and the destruction of mosques and historical sites.
Based at Cranfield University within the Defence Academy of the U.K., Dr. Anastasia Filippidou is a leading expert on counterterrorism and influencing behavior. Filippidou told the author that it is vital to be first when setting a narrative. It’s less effective to chase and then counter terrorists’ propaganda:
“In this globalized world, it is impossible to have a vacuum — something will fill in that vacuum. And when we’re talking about issues of security, you need to be first in and set your own narrative. If you say nothing and you leave a gap — be it social media or anything else — they will come in with their own interpretation. You’re then putting yourself in a disadvantageous position, as then you’re chasing the already-set narrative.”
In other words, we should not allow terrorists to set the narrative in the first place. Saying nothing is harmful. Dr. Filippidou insists we are making a further error. “What AQ is doing is rational for AQ. We need to take off our own biases — not in the sense of being apologetic or giving any sense of legitimacy or approval — but in the sense of really trying to understand them. The fact that AQ/Da’ish are nasty or stupid is irrelevant [regarding communication]. How are you going to find the right way to counter what they are doing — from their actions, to their narrative, to their ideas.”
Dr. Filippidou understands, however, the dilemma of governments:
“To an extent, while governments have been a bit behind with media and counternarrative, it is understandable. A terrorist organization doesn’t have to get it right; it can say anything it wants. But a government has to verify, confirm and make sure it’s the right information. But on the other hand, governments have been quite slow catching up with the value and importance of social media. It’s been dismissed as something for a new generation or young people. It is being misused? Yes. Is it being abused? Yes. We cannot overreact, as then you’re playing into their hands. You cannot underreact, as then again you’re playing into their hands. The most important thing is that we try not to put ourselves in a position of chasing. And much has been reactive. We must be proactive.”
The first step is to educate communities and the world regarding the true nature of those who attempt to hijack Islam to gain legitimacy. Leaders such as Jordan’s King Abdullah have spoken out against those who would label Da’ish as “Muslim.”
“I don’t know what these people are, but they definitely do not have any relationship to our faith,” the king told CNN. “When Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, came out with his manifesto, even extremist organizations completely backed away from what he said. So he has nothing to do with the tenets of Islam, which is a religion of tolerance that reaches out to other people.”
Indeed, it may be communities themselves that are the key to driving forward this message of counterradicalization. In Europe, the Muslim Youth League U.K. declared its own fight against extremism, stating that these so-called militants have “no link with Islam or the Muslim community. … Our efforts are aimed at deterring further ISIS recruitment in Britain and defending the Muslim community, who feel their religion has been hijacked.” They have announced that the killing of any person is un-Islamic, whatever their faith, and condemned extremists’ “deviation,” adding: “We challenge ISIS, similar groups and their supporters ideologically and intellectually,” according to an article published in The Independent.
This idea of “challenging” is increasingly understood within communities and also across the Middle East and Europe. The European Union is placing $20 million into funding counterradicalization. Interestingly, part of this money will be directed to encouraging critical thinking about extremist views, including educating communities with direct contact with former extremists about the realities of life under Da’ish. U.S. Gen. John Allen, special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (also known as Da’ish), praised the EU’s initiative, adding that countermessaging is one of the key five factors in defeating Da’ish, along with the military, humanitarian relief for victims, disrupting the flow of foreign fighters and disrupting terror finance.
But countering the terrorist narrative is critically important. The counter narrative needs to be proactive, or terrorists will fill any vacuum. Moreover, the more this narrative is community-led, the greater its legitimacy. We have made progress, and we’ve learned from mistakes. But there is a very long way to go. We need to keep on top of new media as the technology rapidly develops.
About the contributor: Dr. Dinos Anthony Kerigan-Kyrou is a visiting lecturer at the University of Greenwich in London and an external instructor at Defence Forces Ireland. For six years he was an assistant course coordinator at the NATO School Oberammergau in Germany. Kerigan-Kyrou is a member of the Emerging Security Challenges Working Group based at the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies at the Marshall Center, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.
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