Bringing Down the Digital Caliphate: A Breaking the ISIS Brand Counter-Narratives Intervention with Albanian Speaking Facebook Accounts
Author(s):
The Western Balkans has been over represented on a per capita basis for foreign recruitment in terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Nusra. Research shows that much of the recruitment into ISIS and al-Nusra, including in the Balkans, occurred via a combination of Internet-based and face-to-face interactions. This research represents an attempt to battle with the ISIS ideology and their active recruitment in the digital space using some of the same methods they do—that is, by interacting with those who like, follow, endorse, and promote their materials and presenting them with counter-narratives in an emotionally impactful video format. Seventy-seven Albanian Facebook accounts (15 female and 62 male) that endorsed or promoted ISIS materials were identified and studied with three counter-narrative interventions. A set of specific indicators, such as the level of engagement with our counter-narratives videos, discussions and engagement on the part of our target audience, among others, served as a measure of our successful online intervention. While it is difficult to ascertain whether our counter-narrative materials had any effect on our target audience in terms of changing their behavior, or reversing their further radicalization into violence, the results demonstrate that it is possible to identify, study, and engage ISIS endorsing and promoting Facebook account holders in a meaningful manner with the stories of ISIS insiders who demystify harsh realities of belonging to the terrorist group and denounce it completely.