Telegram offers privacy and encryption, allowing users to interact using their mobile devices (tablets and smart-phones) as well as laptop and desktop computers. It offers as a secure environment where sharing content is very easy. This includes the option to download large files directly via the Telegram application instead of having to open an external link in a browser to access the new videos and word documents. According to Telegram, the application is a cloud-based instant messaging service, providing optional end-to-end-encrypted messaging. It is free and open, having an “open API and protocol free for everyone,”[1] while having no limits on how much data individual users can share.
Media savvy IS members and sympathizers then took to Telegram where in the meantime, via hundreds of channels, often more than 50,000 Telegram messages are pushed out each week.
Telegram is being used to share content produced by ‘official’ IS channels. As had been the case on Twitter – and as is the nature of online jihad on social media sites – such content is enriched and enhanced by media supporters from within ISIS held territory as well as sympathizers worldwide. The output is mainly in Arabic whereas dedicated linguist and translation departments ensure a global audience is reached. Telegram is being used as a formal communication channel by a range of content aggregators within the movement, rolling out the official IS videos from the various provinces to word and PDF documents released by a rich blend of media agencies, such as al-Battar, al-Wafa’, Ashhad, al-Hayyat and many more.
A media group by the name Horizon (Mu’assassat Afaaq) established itself as a new IS media wing to provide sympathizers advice and tutorials on online security and encryption. This is a current trend and highlights that user security on mobile devices, encryption and general awareness is raising. This chatter on Telegram, arguably, also led ‘classic’ IS media newspapers to pick up this trend and put an emphasis on the “electronic war”, enemy capabilities and operational security advice for IS members and sympathizers.[2]
Sunni Jihadists and in particular IS have a passion to publish and disseminate pictures, conveying coded notions, sentiments and passions. The “Gazwa” channel on Telegram sees itself in the tradition of the classical horseback riding ‘hit-and-run’ warrior, independent of a fixed base or camp.
Following the classical understanding of conducting raids in the desert – as visualized in the execution video addressed earlier, the jihadists on Telegram perceive themselves as a coordination point for raids (ghazawat). These ghazawat are orchestrated on Telegram and then pushed into other social media platforms. Telegram is central to the supply of text for Tweets, disseminating new hashtags, the timing of such raids, and the flooding of comments on Facebook pages and so on. IS media operatives and sympathizers miss Twitter and even from IS official media outlets a return has been demanded – fearing that da’wa on Telegram just being among like-minded people will not work, as outlined in a future part.[3]
Hence, Arabic transcribed keywords in Latin such as “ghazwa” play a major role, and help to identify content quickly and sign up for new jihadist related channels on Telegram and elsewhere. As visualized above – taken from the IS channel Ghazwa on Telegram, the transliteration can vary especially after channels are being suspended.
During the attacks in March 2016 in Brussels, IS media operatives on Telegram prepared French language Tweets with hashtags used at the time of the attack to maximize the reach of pro-IS Tweets. Likewise, other social media platforms are affected by such “social media raids.” By the time such accounts are deleted on Twitter and elsewhere, IS has a new event-driven operation backed by social media raids. As had been the case on Twitter, Telegram is now the main hub for IS to share content reposting from Twitter, other social media such as YouTube, vimeo, DailyMotion, SendVid and Facebook, as well as websites containing IS propaganda, including those hosted on wordpress.com.
The multi-lingual strategic outreach and communication approach is clear: targeting non-Arabic speaking potential recruits in the West remains a high priority of IS while maintaining and ensuring the steady uninterrupted production and dissemination of Arabic content (targeting Arab native speakers worldwide).
Multi-dimension outreach strategy: orchestrating an influence operation during the March 2016 Brussels attack, calling for a “Twitter Campaign”. French-language pro-IS tweets to be copy-and-pasted onto Twitter accounts that will be abandoned shortly after, using respective French mainstream hashtags to inject pro-IS messages into general networks. This method is also used to ensure content moves from Telegram where it is only visible to channel members onto open platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or blogs such as WordPress.
[1] www.telegram.org
[2] Ali Fisher, Swarmcast: How Jihadist Networks Maintain a Persistent Online Presence, Perspectives on Terrorism, 2015, http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/426/html
[3] Al-Naba’ Magazina no. 54.
Online Jihad: Monitoring Jihadist Online Communities 
One thought on “Part 6: Substituting the Jihadist Twittersphere for Islamic State Telegrams”