Cyber-jihadism or cyber-jihadism is the promotion of jihadism and Islamist objectives through the internal, in particular social networks.
They are trying to take the necessary measures by deleting the accounts of these terrorists who publish their messages and other content on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram. However, the fight to thwart the actions of these cyber terrorists is doomed to failure. Why ? Because the current solutions are only for the short term according to Gérôme Billois, expert at the French Information Security Club (Clusif). Why is this an almost impossible fight? First, it’s easy to reopen a closed account. This can be done in less than 60 seconds thanks to automated registrations.
Even after closing 235,000 accounts, the Twitter giant only delayed the bomb. The jihadists, wishing to carry out their terrorist propaganda, will always be able to open and promote their accounts only by giving the identity of their new pseudo to their disciples or colleagues. Then, there can be complications during these account closings, including the migration of jihadists to confidential and encrypted social networks. These criminals even manage to make their way to the “darkweb” or “deep web”, designating the part of the web accessible online, but not indexed by the search engines. Darkweb, cryptography, cyber-concealment, etc.
Due to the constant controls at the level of social networks, cyber-jihadists migrate to Darkweb or cryptography and resort to delicate software and applications like Darknet or Telegram whose exchanges can be encrypted. Furthermore, anyone can access these anonymization, encryption and cyber-concealment software programs on the web, and no special skills are required for the application. Social networks pressed by the government Twitter, YouTube or Facebook have recently come under pressure from various countries. They want social networks to do more to combat online terrorist indoctrination and the use of their platforms by jihadist networks. These giants of social interaction have indicated that they will seek all possible means to eradicate this scourge.
However, cybersecurity specialists say the task looks almost impossible with the existence of more than 2 billion people on social networks, including 1.55 billion on Facebook and 307 million on Twitter. Radicalization of young people on social networks is gaining momentum The Web gives violent extremists the means to popularize hatred and violence, and even to seek potential members by building online communities whose mission is to incite radicalization . These cyber-terrorists take advantage of all technological means, in particular sites promoting terrorism, forums, videos and especially social networks. These social networks are now key elements in the lives of young people today.
Cyber-jihadists thus use them to attract young adults and adolescents who gradually and following radicalization systems, break their family, cultural, social and friendly relationships. In conclusion, social networks are not considered to be the source of radicalization, but contribute to it, despite the measures already taken by their owners.