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Report: Islamic State's presence growing on Twitter with 46,000 accounts

By Ed Adamczyk

WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- A Brookings Institution report estimates at least 46,000 Twitter accounts are held and used by Islamic State supporters, primarily in Iraq and Syria.

The accounts are used to send messages regarding IS activities and support for the organization, but other social media platforms are used for recruitment, according to the 68-page report, authored by Brookings' J.M. Berger and technology expert Jonathon Morgan.

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"The ISIS Twitter Census," commissioned by Google Ideas, is an analysis of how IS uses Twitter to broadcast multimedia presentations of its actions, including its crimes, and disseminate propaganda. It creates "a demographic snapshot of ISIS supporters on Twitter using a very large and accurate sample of accounts," said the report, which was released Thursday. Researchers noted that most of the account holders analyzed used Arabic to communicate, with one-fifth using English, and that the estimate of 46,000 users is a conservative figure. Many users have multiple accounts, nullifying attempts to use termination of accounts to stop the spread of information. Over 1,000 accounts have been suspended.

IS leaders rely on social media to disseminate orders, activities and information about life under IS rule, messages that are re-sent by supporters, jihadist investigator Aaron Zelin told the BBC.

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Militant groups have come to rely on Twitter and other social media platforms. They are an integral part of IS strategy, and core users share demographics, such as age, with IS supporters.

Even President Barack Obama, speaking to members of the U.S. Senate, referred to IS activity as a "social media-fueled terrorism group in a way we haven't seen yet. People who are very distant from any battlefield, from any experience of radicalism, are suddenly becoming enticed through social media."

The report notes most of the Twitter accounts analyzed were created by users in 2014, suggesting the number of accounts is growing rapidly. It estimated each user, on average, sent 7.3 messages per day and 2,219 messages during the duration of the account, with 1,004 followers per users -- more than the typical Twitter user.

Few users identified their locations; of those who did, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia were the most common locations.

The report concludes, "No single authority possesses the scope and power to fully address the challenges presented by the presence of ISIS and other similar groups on social media." But the researchers recommend that all stakeholders, including government, defense departments, intelligence agencies and social media companies, unite to discuss changing the influence of IS on social media.

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Simply suspending accounts, the primary weapon used so far, has little effect.

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