I briefed Twitter executives in September 2016 about how Islamist terrorists were using the site and what the company could do about it. Until that point, the relationship between my organization, the Middle East Media Research Institute, or Memri, and the San Francisco-based social-media platform had been contentious. Twitter had repeatedly dismissed our calls to take action to stop jihadist infestation of the platform.
I began monitoring Twitter in 2010, when there were only a few jihadists on the platform. Then in 2011 the Taliban began tweeting, as did al-Shabaab, the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia. They were soon joined by U.K. jihadists such as pro-ISIS preacher and activist Anjem Choudary, a leading figure in outlawed organizations such as al-Muhajiroun. Radical Islamic terrorists used Twitter to spread their messages, call for attacks against Western interests, recruit new members, build sympathizers and raise funds. All of this was documented in Memri reports charting jihadist use of Twitter.
Between 2011 and 2016, Memri published hundreds of reports on jihadists’ Twitter activity that were used by U.S. counterterrorism officials and other government agencies. Lawmakers began directly appealing to Twitter to take action. The company did very little to stop terrorists from proliferating on its platform and ignored Memri’s appeals to do so, but the country was growing alarmed. Twitter had become the main platform on which nearly every jihadist group was active; by December 2015, ISIS was telling followers that Twitter and Facebook should be used as the main social media platforms “where the general public is found.”
New challenges arose in September 2013, when al-Shabaab live-tweeted its four-day attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Sixty-two innocent shoppers were killed. “The Mujahideen entered #Westgate Mall today at around noon and are still inside the mall, fighting the #Kenyan Kuffar (infidels) inside their own turf,” the group tweeted. Its spokesman said the mall was targeted because it hosted “Jewish and American shops” and was a destination for international tourists, diplomats and Kenyan decision-makers. This al Qaeda affiliate energized global jihad, using Twitter as a tool for online outreach.
ISIS saw how effectively al-Shabaab used Twitter and took jihadist exploitation of social media to another level. In August 2014, ISIS shared a video of its operatives beheading American journalist James Foley. It first uploaded the video to YouTube and then tweeted a graphic blow-by-blow series of stills showing the knife cutting his throat, the removal of his head, and the placement of his severed head on his lifeless body. The tweets went viral and shook the world.
ISIS then announced four more beheadings of Americans and Britons on Twitter. The number of graphic jihadist tweets of beheadings and executions peaked in early 2015. Despite Twitter’s statements about removing “graphic imagery”—following an avalanche of negative reactions from government, media, researchers and others—its approach was reactive. ISIS continued to thrive on Twitter, and suspended accounts quickly reappeared, sometimes more than 100 times.
Memri determined that Twitter was ISIS’ go-to platform for communications, fundraising, outreach and recruitment. Slick video productions showed the camaraderie of daily life in the caliphate. One highly tweeted theme was “martyrdom,” including horrific photos of ISIS fighters’ corpses and the severed heads of local civilians. Another favorite theme was Islamic religious punishments, including the maiming, crucifixion and execution of homosexuals by stoning and shooting. In some cases these men were killed by being thrown off buildings. Thousands of photos were also tweeted of children being indoctrinated and trained in jihad.
In 2014 and 2015, ISIS used Twitter to promote its mobile media operation, which included vans to distribute propaganda and outreach materials across Syria, Iraq and Libya. The group also used the platform to document its mass murder of Christians, Yazidis and civilians throughout the Middle East. As always, the goal was to instill fear, grab world media attention, and raise money to purchase military equipment.
It took years of public exposure and pressure from policy makers to purge jihadist content. By 2015, jihadists were growing tired of seeing their content removed and began using alternative platforms such as Telegram, which featured less-aggressive monitoring. For all the damage Twitter wreaked as a tool of ISIS and other jihadists, the company was fortunate not to have been held accountable despite all the lawsuits against it by families of terror victims.
Today, the issue of terrorism on Twitter is again in the spotlight. In October, the Supreme Court took up cases concerning Twitter’s, Meta’s, Google’s, and other companies’ facilitation of past jihadist attacks. This includes new scrutiny of past content on Twitter and of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which concerns legal protections for apps and websites. In response, Twitter argued that “it is far from clear what a provider of ordinary services can do to avoid terrorism, since a plaintiff can readily allege that the defendant could have done more to prevent terrorists’ use.” This fresh attention could reopen criticism over Twitter’s evasion of responsibility.
For all its faults, Twitter has managed in recent years to keep ISIS, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups off its platform. But jihadists still want to tweet and won’t stop trying to sneak back onto Twitter. As Elon Musk restores many accounts that had been shut down, he should make sure he doesn’t give back access to jihadists who would kill and maim innocent people the in name of militant fundamentalist Islam.
Mr. Stalinsky is executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.
