In the past decade, two of the fastest growing impacts on human life are that of TERRORISM and SOCIAL MEDIA. With the advancement of technology and internet social media have become one of the most techno-viral infections by which each and every individual from the age group of 8 to 80 years are infected. The global terrorists are not far behind in utilising this technological aid. The bridge between terrorism and the media has been long embedded. Terrorist organizations in this gizmo age are heavily depended on the open media systems of democratic countries to spread their message and objectives. In order to get publicity towards their cause, terrorist organizations resort to acts of violence and aggression that deliberately target civilians. This method has proven to be effective in gathering attention.
Social Media gives a platform to the global terrorist to convey their agenda to as many people as possible at one go. The platform is so huge that it can reach to billions of people at one instant and helps the terrorists to propagate the vulnerable minds in favour of terrorism by the virtue of motivating them on the name of religion, caste, creed, colour and even economic condition. Many tapes of violence and act of terrorism are released at regular intervals by the different global terrorist groups. Many terrorist heads even release videos where they try to propagate innocent mind by interpreting to them the false meaning of the holy books of various religious and also wrongly misconstruing to them the teaching of their religious leader. One notable example of the relationship between terror groups and the media was the release of the Osama bin Laden audio and video recordings. These tapes were sent directly to mainstream Arabic television networks including Al-Jazeera.
ISIS has proved fluent in YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, internet memes and other social media. Its posting activity has ramped up during a recent offensive, reaching an all-time high of almost 40,000 tweets in one day as they marched into the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. Twitter has tried to counter ISIS, suspending more than 1,000 accounts it suspected of terrorist links. Amateur videos and images are being uploaded daily by its foot soldiers, which are then globally shared both by ordinary users and mainstream news organisations.
ISIS use of hash tags is interesting, as they focus them on group messaging and branding concepts. ISIS even uses social media to recruit people for their organisation.
Lastly, it can be concluded that we should not tolerate any one instigating us on social media in the name of GOD, Colour, Creed, etc. We should stand United.
