Thursday, July 2, 2015

ISIS Is Winning The Internet Game


July 2, 2015 at 10:00 AM

onpoint.wbur.org

With guest host Jane Clayson.
A big, provocative look at the sophisticated online efforts of ISIS to recruit and lure Westerners to their cause.
This file image taken from a militant website associated with Islamic State extremists, posted Saturday, May 23, 2015, purports to show a suicide bomber, with the Arabic bar below reading: "Urgent: The heroic martyr Abu Amer al-Najdi, the attacker of the (Shiite) temple in Qatif", which the Islamic State group's radio station claimed responsibility for. (AP)
This file image taken from a militant website associated with Islamic State extremists, posted Saturday, May 23, 2015, purports to show a suicide bomber, with the Arabic bar below reading: “Urgent: The heroic martyr Abu Amer al-Najdi, the attacker of the (Shiite) temple in Qatif”, which the Islamic State group’s radio station claimed responsibility for. (AP)

Guests

Donna Leinwand Leger, crime, terrorism, disaster and breaking news reporter for USA Today. (@donnaleinwand)
Rukmini Callimachi, foreign correspondent for the New York Times. (@rcallimachi)
Alberto Fernandez, vice president of the Middle East Media Research Institute. Former coordinator for the US State Departments’ Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications and former ambassador to Equatorial Guinea. (@VPAFernandez)

From The Reading List

USA Today: Security intensified as July 4th weekend nears — “Federal and local authorities are stepping up security over the Fourth of July following a bulletin by theDepartment of Homeland Security and FBI regarding ongoing attack threats by the Islamic State and other homegrown extremists.”
New York Times: ISIS and the Lonely Young American — “Alex, a 23-year-old Sunday school teacher and babysitter, was trembling with excitement the day she told her Twitter followers that she had converted to Islam. For months, she had been growing closer to a new group of friends online — the most attentive she had ever had — who were teaching her what it meant to be a Muslim. Increasingly, they were telling her about the Islamic State and how the group was building a homeland in Syria and Iraq where the holy could live according to God’s law.”
CBS News: ​Flaws seen in U.S. approach to ISIS propaganda — “‘There is a fantasy which exists in Washington, which is this,’ Ambassador Fernandez argues. ‘Somehow if you put magic social media or public diplomacy pixie dust on a problem, it will go away.’ His staff of fifty workers struggled to compete against ISIS’ virtual online army which posts videos and messages from as many as 90,000 twitter accounts around the world. Despite being outnumbered, Fernandez thinks that the social media space is too valuable to abandon.”

  • MadMarkTheCodeWarrior  31 minutes ago
    I know this is off point, but racist acts have killed more Americans than ISIL terrorists. How many black churches have burned in the past two weeks? How many white churches have burned? Why don't we have a high terror alert for racist arsons?
      • Avatar
        Baelfire  MadMarkTheCodeWarrior  24 minutes ago
        The victims are black and brown so it's not an concern for the media or government. The norm is the government or media makes a few statements about how wrong it is and call on the black and brown victims to forgive and then move on to revenge not forgiveness when the perp is black or brown.
        It's our own media and government bias and racism showing. It's the same reason why you wouldn't see President Obama speaking at a wake of a unarmed black man murder by the police but see him not only speaking at an police wake but calling for more laws to protect them.
        • Avatar
          pete18  2 hours ago
          ISIS's internet campaign is certainly effective on on influencing the White House:
          US blocks attempts by Arab allies to fly heavy weapons directly to Kurds to fight Islamic State
            • Avatar
              Mean___Girl  8 hours ago
              Guest: Alberto Fernandez
              Vice President of the Middle East Media Research Institute
              Not exactly a reliable information source, simply more 
              "wag the dog", neocon Zionism. MEMRI's Board of Advisors includes such "luminaries" as Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Paul Bremer, John Bolton, William Bennett. In other words the whole wacko crew which helped bring us the War on Terror: Special Deception Unit: IRAQ. And MEMRI is on the dole: we fund it to lie to us. Watch for the spin.
              The Center for Media and Democracy:
              Middle East Media Research Institute
              Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is a Israeli 
              propaganda organization that selectively translates materials from the Arab/Muslim/Iranian press purportedly demonstrating hostility against Israel/Jews. According to the MEMRI web site: "MEMRI emphasizes the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel."
              Mondoweiss:
              State Department beneficiary, MEMRI, is dedicated to bringing Israeli ideas about Arab world and Iran into U.S. establishment
              Yesterday’s $200,000 grant from the State Department to the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, whose boards are loaded with Bush-era neocons, including Elliott Abrams, John Bolton and Bernard Lewis, is shocking news.
              The Guardian:
              Selective Memri 
              "Memri's intent is to find the worst possible quotes from the Muslim world and disseminate them as widely as possible."
                • Avatar
                  Baelfire  Mean___Girl  20 minutes ago
                  Onpoint's "Fair and Balance" at work.
                  MEMRI is in line with CAMERA, HONEST REPORTING, AIPAC,WINEP, SABAN.
                  MEMRI is also backed by a outright people belonging to hate group http://rightweb.irc-online.org...
                  But Hate groups are ok when the targets are black or brown and Muslim.
                  MEMRI was founded by Meyrav Wurmser
                  and Yigal Carmon, both of whom have ideological affinities with Israel's conservative Likud Party. Wurmser, the spouse of former Dick Cheney adviser David Wurmser, left her position as executive director in 2002 to join the Hudson Institute.As of 2011, Carmon, who is a former colonel in the Israeli military 
                  intelligence, remains MEMRI's president. Steven Stalinksy, a former assistant to the Clinton/Gore campaign who has contributed to numerous 
                  neoconservative publications (including the Weekly Standard and the in-house journal of the Middle East Forum), has served as MEMRI's executive director since Wurmser stepped down.[2]
                  MEMRI's directors and advisory boards are top-heavy with neoconservatives and other supporters of hawkish U.S. and Israeli policies. Current and former board members include Elliott Abrams, Steve Emerson, Bernard Lewis, Elie Wiesel, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, Jose Maria Aznar, Donald Rumsfeld, James Woolsey, John Bolton, John Ashcroft, Ehud Barak, Mort Zuckerman, Michael Mukasey, Norman Podhoretz, William Bennett, Christopher DeMuth (former president of the American Enterprise Institute), Paul Bremer, Herb London (president of the Hudson Institute), Natan Sharanksy, James Q. Wilson, Alan Dershowitz, Richard Holbrooke, Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and Irving Kristol.(As of October 2011, information about MEMRI staff and directors was available online. However, previously, the organization was criticized for not providing access to this information online and for attempting to disguise its political ties.[3])
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