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ABSTRACT
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) online recruitment has been the subject of considerable interest by journalists and technology writers, but there has been no scholarly work to date exploring ISIS Telegram channels and chat rooms. Telegram has played an important role in recruitment and coordination in recent ISIS/terror attacks in Europe. Further, Telegram is quickly replacing the group’s online presence on more open platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as these companies aggressively police and shut down ISIS-linked accounts. This research note aims to demystify Telegram, explain how it can be used for research, and discuss some of the addictive qualities associated with user engagement.
Notes
1. This research is sponsored by a grant from the Minerva Research Initiative ONR #N0000141613174 under the auspices of the Office of Naval Research. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research, or the U.S. Government. We also wish to thank Chelsea Daymon, Wojciech Kaczkowski, and Jade Parker for their assistance on early drafts and Danielle Douez for her assistance with the final draft.
2. David Rapoport, “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions,” The American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (Sep., 1984): 658-77; B. Lewis, The Assassins (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 95.
3. S. K. Aburish, Arafat: From Defender to Dictator (New York: Bloomsbury, 1998), 123.
4. B. Nacos, Mass Mediated Terrorism (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).
5. N. Prucha and I. Fisher, “Tweeting for the Caliphate: Twitter as the New Frontier for Jihadist Propaganda,” CTC Sentinel 6, no. 6, Combatting Terrorism Center, June 25, 2013, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/tweeting-for-the-caliphate-twitter-as-the-new-frontier-for-jihadist-propaganda
6. K. J. Greenberg, “Counter-Radicalization via the Internet,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 668, no. 1 (2016): 165-79.
7. This change of strategy from Twitter and Facebook to Telegram was due to account deletion. Telegram is not as effective as Twitter and Facebook in countering online propaganda and has been more difficult to police content on because of the encryption.
8. Notably SITE Intel, MEMRI, TRAC, and other for profit research companies.
9. February 23, 2017, discussion at ISA panel on Radicalization and the Internet sponsored by Vox-Pol, Dublin City University, Dr. Maura Conway, PI.
10. As explained by Graham Crow and Rose Wiles, Managing Anonymity and Confidentiality in Social Research: The Case of Visual Data in Community Research. NCRM Working Paper. ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (Unpublished, 2008), 3. “The primary method researchers use to preserve anonymity and confidentiality is the use of pseudonyms for participants and also for the location of the research.” However there is an expectation that the identity of the researcher is not concealed from the subject; this makes observing online engagement challenging because one can observe but not participate and in doing so conceal or lie about one’s actual identity. Accessed: http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/459/1/0808_managing%2520anonymity%2520and%2520confidentiality.pdf
11. E. Hamburger, “Why Telegram Has Become the Hottest Messaging App in the World,” The Verge, February 25, 2014, http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/25/5445864/Telegram-messenger-hottest-app-in-the-world
12. R. Williams, “What Is Telegram? The New WhatsApp?,” Telegraph (UK), February 25, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10658647/What-is- Telegram-the-new-WhatsApp.html
13. Lizzie Dearden, “Khalid Masood: Suspected ISIS Supporter Used WhatsApp Two Minutes before London Attack,” The Independent (UK), March 24, 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/khalid-masood-whatsapp-westminster-london-attack-parliament-message-isis-terror-network-contacts-a7649206.html (accessed May 18, 2017).
14. Andrew Sparrow, “WhatsApp Must Be Accessible to Authorities, Says Amber Rudd,” The Guardian (UK), March 26, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/26/intelligence-services-access-whatsapp-amber-rudd-westminster-attack-encrypted-messaging
15. S. Meichtry and S. Schechner, “How Islamic State Weaponized the Chat App to Direct Attacks on the West,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-islamic-state-weaponized-the-chat-app-to-direct-attacks-on-the-west-1476955802
16. L. Al Khouri and A. Kassire, Tech for Jihad (New York: Flashpoint, 2016), https://www.flashpoint-intel.com/book/tech-jihad-dissecting-jihadists-digital-toolbox/
17. The rate of deletions has increased exponentially (and this can be deemed aggressive). In monitoring one particular English-language channel, Khilafah News, the lifespan of the channel went from a few days to a few hours. Lifespan varies by channel and many of the chat rooms discuss explicitly how “spies” have been reporting channels to be deleted.
18. Greenberg (see note 6 above); S. M. Powers, “Conceptualizing Radicalization in a Market for Loyalties,” Media, War & Conflict 7, no. 2 (June 12, 2014): 233-49; H. Khang, J. K. Kim, and Y. Kim, “Self-traits and Motivations as Antecedents of Digital Media Flow and Addiction: The Internet, Mobile Phones, and Video Games,” Computers in Human Behavior 29, no. 6 (2013): 2416-24; G. M. Hart, B. Johnson, B. Stamm, N. Angers, A. Robinson, T. Lally, and W. H. Fagley, “Effects of Video Games on Adolescents and Adults,” Cyberpsychology and Behavior 12, no. 1 (2009): 63-65; D. A. Gross, “How ISIS Recruits Online—Using Encryption, Chat Rooms and Even Dating Sites,” PRI the World, May 13, 2016, https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-05-13/how-isis-recruits-online-using-encryption-chat-rooms-and-even-dating-sites
19. Office of Naval Research Minerva Research Initiative Award #N0000141613174.
20. Gross (see note 18 above).
22. G. Riva, B. K. Wiederhold, and P. Cipresso, The Psychology of Social Networking Vol. 1: Personal Experience in Online Communities (Warsaw/Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 168-9.
23. This is comparable to how previous Jihadi chat rooms and forums managed membership; see for example, Manual R. Torres-Soriano, “The Hidden Face of Jihadist Internet Forum Management: The Case of Ansar al Muhajideen,” Terrorism and Political Violence 28, no. 4 (2016): 735-49.
24. J. A. Russell and A. Mehrabian, “Evidence for a Three-factor Theory of Emotions,” Journal of Research in Personality 11, no. 3 (1977): 273–94; also Bakker .
25. However our corpus of channels and chat rooms comprise approximately 150 channels and chat rooms, which fluctuates based on channel/room closure, adding new channels, and getting removed from others.
26. K. P. Allen, “Tweeting, Texting, and Facebook Postings: Stirring the Pot with Social Media to Make Drama—Case Study and Participant Observation,” Qualitative Report 19, no. 2 (2014).
27. There might be no reason for the removal and the team was able to observe people insisting on their innocence and demanding exoneration and being readmitted (at which time they needed to contact the administrator individually).
28. The four most active chat rooms we monitored had between eight and twenty administrators. We also noticed that the same five individuals were active within the chat rooms; one account administered nine different chat rooms, which explains how bots function in these rooms: the same message is posted instantly across dozens of channels simultaneously.
29. P. Monsendz, “No, Isis Doesn’t Use Nutella, Kittens to Lure Female Recruits,” Newsweek, February 19, 2015, http://www.newsweek.com/no-isis-doesnt-use-nutella-kittens-lure-female-recruits-308080
30. Khang et al. (see note 18 above).
31. Greenberg (see note 6 above), 167.
32. Khang et al. (see note 18 above).
33. E. Mazaheri, M. O. Richard, M. Laroche, and L. C. Ueltschy, “The Influence of Culture, Emotions, Intangibility, and Atmospheric Cues on Online Behavior,” Journal of Business Research 67, no. 3 (2014): 253–9.
34. Khang et al. (see note 18 above), 2416.
35. A. Bandura, “Moral Disengagement and the Perpetuation of Inhumanities,” Personal and Social Psychology Review 3, no. 3 (1999): 193–209.
36. Powers (see note 18 above), 236.
37. Khang et al. (see note 18 above).
38. A. Mehrabian and J. A. Russell, An Approach to Environmental Psychology (Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1974).
39. Discussions with Dr. Gina Ligon, University of Nebraska, Omaha, January 2017.
40. A. Joinson and B. Dietz-Uhler, “Explanations for the Perpetration of and Reactions to Deception in a Virtual Community,” Social Science Computer Review 20, no. 3 (2002).
41. E-mail interview with Laith al Khouri, March 8, 2017.