EU operation deals 'severe blow' to Islamic State online propaganda

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Efforts by the European Union to curb online terror propaganda have dealt a “severe blow” to the Islamic State group's online presence, according to European officials.

Taking place from November 21-24, an operation coordinated by European police agency Europol removed 26,000 Islamic State (ISIS)-related pieces of content from the web, including videos and profiles of fighters, according to AFP.

More than 40,000 foreign nationals flocked to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS during their bloody reign which ended in Raqqa earlier this year. Social media propaganda drives have played a key part in recruiting new members of the terror group, and channels are updated on a regular basis.

The group also used online platforms to boost their slave trade of Yezidi women, who were sold for as little as $5 on Facebook and Telegram.

“ISIS is not present on the internet anymore and we will see how fast, if ever, they will regain service,” Belgian Federal Prosecutor Eric van der Sypt told reporters on Monday.

The operation aimed to remove “everything” related to the Islamic State, he added.

A joint operation by the US, EU and Canada forced the terror group to rely further on online messaging after seizing a number of its servers in spring 2018.

This is not the first time Europe has targeted the group’s online presence, and der Sypt remained optimistic but cautious.

We've knocked them down for the moment... but we're not naive. A first cyberattack in 2018 didn't stop them from bouncing back," he told AFP.

Spanish police have also arrested a man suspected to be one of the “main distributors” of online extremist content, the outlet reported.

Belgian authorities sparked the operation following an investigation into Amaq, the ISIS propaganda outlet.

The country has been at the epicenter of IS attacks in Europe, following a double suicide attack in March 2016 that left over 30 people dead. The attacks were said to be retribution for France’s capture of Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national who is the sole surviving perpetrator of the deadly 2015 Paris terror attacks.

Telegram emerged as the main source of offending material, and a “significant” number of key actors were removed from the service, according to Van der Sypt.

Twitter previously reported that it suspended 1.2 million accounts spreading terrorist content over a three-year period.

However, Facebook has not been as vigilant.

A 2018 report by the Counter Extremism Project highlighted the failures of social media outlets, namely Facebook, in removing ISIS-affiliated material.

The project accused Facebook of failing to “effectively prevent ISIS’ extensive misuse of the platform,” and added that terror content remained “pervasive” on the site.

Of 1,000 ISIS profiles it observed, only 430 (43 percent) had been removed by Facebook by the end of the six-month research period.

“Perhaps most concerning is that Facebook’s suggested friends algorithm, which recommended IS supporters, propagandists, and even fighters as suggested friends, reveals how the company’s tools have aided in connecting extremist profiles and help expand IS networks,” it added.

With reporting from AFP

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