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Social media has not altered basic pattern of recruitment of Indonesian extremists

Social media use in Indonesia has not significantly increased the recruitment or radicalization of individuals by the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL), according to a study by the Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict (IPAC), founded in 2013 in Jakarta.

Although ISIL propaganda has persuaded some Indonesians to leave Indonesia to help create a “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq, the report found, the numbers have not dramatically increased. The ratio of foreign fighters per million population in Indonesia was still “far below” the ratios of Belgium, Denmark, France or the United Kingdom through October 15, 2015, according to the Indonesian National Anti-Terrorism Agency. It estimates that as many as 800 Indonesians have joined ISIL but only 284 have been identified by name, and that number includes women and children.

Instead, “direct face-to-face interaction is still crucial” for recruitment, according to the IPAC report, “Online Activism and Social Media Usage Among Indonesian Extremists,” published October 30, 2015. Internet messaging and cellphone communication, however, may reinforce such personal engagement, the report said.

The study also found some new trends. ISIL appeals to women and families, unlike the previous generation of Islamic jihadists who trained on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Moreover, families who leave Indonesia for ISIL have no plans to come back and they typically sell their belongings to pay for travel, the report said.

The ISIL message, propagated by individual propagandists, has also reached a larger number of people than previous recruitment extremist campaigns, the study found. “Where social media has made a difference is in its ability to turn anyone with a Twitter account into a potential propagandist, meaning that the ISIS message may start with friends and family linked into online networks but quickly reaches a much broader public,” the report said.

Social media may have more impact in countries such as Malaysia where “police monitoring of suspected extremists is so strict that the only relatively ‘safe’ means of interaction is online — and then only with some form of encryption,” the report said. However, such propaganda can push passive supporters to become active members, according to Middle East researcher Charlie Winter at the Quilliam Foundation, a counterterrorist think tank based in London.

“Understanding how ISIS propaganda is affecting communities inside Indonesia is an essential prerequisite to effective prevention attempts,” said the report, which offered solutions for countering online messaging in Indonesia.

The report recommends that Indonesian government officials:

  • Add personnel with advanced computer skills to the counterterrorism police unit, Detachment 88, and the National Anti-Terrorism Agency to analyze social media communications.
  • Restrict access to the Internet and social media by convicted terrorists and other high-risk offenders.
  • Promote research by academic institutions that targets use of social media and the impact of ISIL messaging.
  • Launch a public interest campaign based on research findings to counter ISIL communications.

“Advanced techniques of crowd-sourcing are probably essential, and here Google, Twitter and Facebook computer analysts and other parts of the private sector could help,” the report concluded. “But so can disillusioned returnees who have come back from Syria with stories of corruption, false promises and discrimination by Arabs who treat Southeast Asians as second-class citizens.”

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