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Lauren Frank
Mr. Phillips
Research Essay
Third period
ISIS Social Media Recruitment
Many young adults use social media on a daily basis, but sometimes what
happens on social media is not always a necessarily good thing. Social media has
become a major weapon for terrorist organizations such as ISIS. They take a
common everyday tool and use it as a recruitment tool. Social media has been
transferred from simply using for pleasure and connecting with friends to planning
international terrorist attacks. One of the main countries that is dealing with this
issue is the United Kingdom. The recruitment by ISIS of young adults from the UK
has gradually increased in ISIS because of the propaganda on social media sites
such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The number of people that have left their
homes and fled to join the jihad have exponentially grown and it has become not
only a problem in the United Kingdom, but hundreds of other countries as well.
Hundreds of United Kingdom Muslims are leaving their homes because of the
YouTube videos that have been broadcasted about the way ISIS works. These men
leave to go fight for the jihad and soon make their own videos trying to recruit other
adolescents. British man Abdul Rakib Armin left his home in Aberdeen and has since
appeared in multiple recruitment videos stating how he wants to die for the sake of
Allah. (1) When Armins family saw this, they were shocked that their own son would
die for such a cause. ISIS has brainwashed the new fighters into believing that

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dying for the sake of ISIS will guarantee you ticket to paradise with Allah. Armin is
not the only man who has been persuaded into this. Twenty year old Nasser left his
family at the age of seventeen after watching an ISIS recruitment video. He has
appeared in many videos and taunted the British authorities saying: So the UK is
afraid I come back with the skills Ive gained.(Kennedy) People are going over to
Syria everyday now and learning terrorist techniques. The UK government, as well
as many other countries, is having a continuous growing concern that as new
recruits constantly come in then a war might have to break out, similar to the one in
Afghanistan. YouTube and other video websites are the main ways that ISIS recruits
new prospective fighters, but another web source is almost as popular.
Twitter is a popular web site that teenagers and young adults use on a regular
basis in the United Kingdom. Researchers have found that are roughly about 288
million active Twitter accounts and on average 500 million tweets are sent out per
day. Out of all of these accounts with the most recent Twitter census it has been
found that there are over 46,000 active ISIS accounts. While around 1,000 of these
accounts have been recently suspended and the suspension of more is in the
process, we still will not be able to find all of the active accounts and delete them.
(Adamcyzk) Many parents are used to their teenagers spending hours and hours
online connecting with friends and playing games.
Most of them wouldnt know when a teenager is drinking or having sex, let
alone being groomed by ISIS, many young Muslims-already adept at living a
double life- will hide their digital footprint in exactly the same way. (Anwar)
Parents have become somewhat gullible now days and when their children tell
them that they are going to be more religious they normally always think the best

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out of them, while in some cases behind closed doors they are becoming
extremists. Adolescents become intrigued not just with all the violent pictures and
videos of Muslim extremists. ISIS members dont just post graphic, gruesome videos
on their Twitter accounts, there are also pictures with them posing with children
making it seem more like a family. This idea intrigues the newcomers because they
will not only be fighting for what they personally believe in, but they will also be
fighting for their brothers. This promise of family security from current members
lures the future soldiers.
Men arent the only ones that are attracted to the idea of ISIS. Many British
women have moved to Syria to marry a man in ISIS because they believe they are
the strongest Muslims. Among these women there is one in particular that has her
own blog. She goes by the pseudonym Bird of Jannah, which translates into little
bird in Arabic. She publicizes how her life is being a jihadist bride and encourages
other woman to join her. She shares that her life has improved drastically with her
move and shes never been happier. When Muslim girls read and watch videos
about the heroic things that ISIS is doing they are attracted to the groups
fanaticism and after a promise of a jihad husband, they flee their homes and begin
a journey to the terrorist organization. After much research it has been found that
out of 600 people that have fled from Britain to join ISIS 10% have been women.
(Gibbons)
While most of the people who go join ISIS leave to fight, there are also many
other things promoted there. British jihadist who now goes by the pen name Abu
Saeed Al-Britani fled the UK and now works mainly with recruitment proving job
opportunities such as teachers, press, and bomb makers. Ali Britani writes, The
brothers in the bomb making department are the core and backbone of nearly every

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operationimagine the reward in preparing a car parked with explosives for a
brother to go detonate in enemy lines-you would get the same reward as the
brother who pushes the button and send 50 kuffaar ,non-Muslims, to hell.
(Dearden) ISIS doesnt want its entire people to be in combat because if they didnt
have weapons there would be no combat. People get intrigued by this idea because
they are in a sense joining the jihad but they arent risking their life day in and day
out, but instead they are working behind the scenes.
The government has tried to intervene with the use of social media.
Organizations such as the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and
Political Violence also known as the ICSR have started to contact ISIS members and
tried to gain the trust of them. ICSR originally only monitored the websites, twitter
accounts, and facebook accounts that jihad members used but they decided that it
was best if they were able to make direct contact with them, but it was not until
2013 that they established direct contact with the foreign fighters themselves.
(Weaver) The ICSR had announced that they have now furthered there knowledge
on ISIS because the recruiters are beginning to trust our spies and now talking to
them more personally. The jihad likes to use text messaging because of
convenience and safety since the government cannot access any of the information
shared.
Another organization is the Muslim Youth League UK. This program is a
volunteer program where the Muslims raise awareness to the recruitment situation.
They hold conferences and try to connect with others via Facebook. They have
declared war against the jihad saying that their practices had no link to Islam or the
Muslim faith. Muslims have always had a stereo type against them, but the Muslim
Youth League UK emphasizes that their violent practices are just solidifying the

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communities belief. (Spencer) This organization is now working trying to stop any
future recruitment and to bring recruits back home to their families.
ISIS has used one weapon to grab the nations attention. Social media.
Without it this terrorist organization wouldnt have made such an impact. They have
learned to use a resource that we use constantly in our daily life and use it against
us. Many people have stated that ISIS might be the next Al- Quida, and they owe all
of that credit to the power of the internet. Now will ISIS continue to grow and
expand, or can the government find a way to protect the people in their online
recruitment? That is something that we will have to wait and find out for ourselves.

Works Cited
"Aberdeen Isis Man Abdul Rakib Amin 'willing to Die' - BBC News."
BBC News. N.p., 7 July 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.
Adamcyzk, Ed. "Report: Islamic State's Presence Growing on Twitter with 46,000
Accounts."
UPI. N.p., 6 Mar. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Anwar, Aamer. "How ISIS's $2B Budget Helps It Recruit Teenagers - CNN.com."
CNN. Cable News Network, 27 Mar. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.

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Dearden, Lizzie. "Isis Advertises 10 Jobs in the 'caliphate' including Press Officers,
Bomb Makers and
Teachers." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 10
Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Kennedy, Dominic. "Ill See You on Judgment Day, Teenage Jihadist Tells Parents |
The Times."
The Times. N.p., 3 July 2014. Web. 21 Apr. 2015.
Weaver, Mary Anne. "Her Majestys Jihadists."
The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 Apr.
2015.
Gibbons, Katie. "Women Shame British Men into Joining the Jihad | The Times."
The Times. N.p., 4 Nov. 2014. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.
Spencer, Robert. Muslim Youth League Declares jihad against the Islamic state.
Jihad Watch. N.p., 31 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2015.