A mobile phone app called Dawn of Glad Tidings helps Isis to promote its Twitter feed and includes embedded advertising. Twitter is also used to supplement traditional fundraising methods, such as extortion, by encouraging Sunni donors in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to click on a link.
If Vietnam was the first television war, the conflict that has spread from Syria into Iraq is the first social media jihad.
Isis is using the internet as part of a sophisticated campaign that combines financial acumen, strategic patience and unspeakable brutality. When it declared last week that it had taken army prisoners, followers on Twitter hailed the achievement and called for them to be executed.
“Brother, you must behead them all and post pictures of their heads on Twitter for all to see, these are not times to be gentle or merciful,” one supporter tweeted.
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