British counter terrorism officials to wage cyber war on ISIS in bid to stop home grown jihad

COUNTER terrorism officials are ordering “take downs” of websites and blog spots directly linked to ISIS determined to stop home grown jihad.

A CYBER war is set to be declared on terrorist group Islamic State amid fears the militant’s use of the internet is successfully inspiring troubled youths into home grown jihad.

In the past nine months, Britain’s Home Office counter terrorism internet unit has authorised a record 30,000 “take downs” of websites and blog spots directly linked to ISIS or glorifying terrorism and promoting lone wolf attacks.

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News_Image_File: Fighting back...the U.S. Department of State's Twitter page "Think Again Turn Away," criticises the Islamic State group as part of a broad social media campaign. Picture:AP

The take-downs eclipse the combined total over the past four years of 19,000 authorisations when the laws were changed in 2010 to allow censoring of digital extremism.

But the British Government has flagged the difficulty in countering the propaganda war with ISIS and other groups including al-Qaeda who are just as likely to use social media sharing websites such as Twitter and Facebook to disseminate their hate messages.

Executives from Google including subsidiary YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have been summonsed to Downing Street in London for talks on curbing extremists’ actions online.News_Image_File: Across social media...“Islamic State” Page on Facebook and Twitter. Picture: Supplied.

They have been asked to dedicate more resources and do more to identify and remove sites quicker and monitor their sites for indirect messaging.

One of the standout measures also being pursued is “splash pages” that flash up when users try to look at extremist propaganda including videos of beheadings as seen recently.

The pop-ups would be similar to those used for child pornography sites where users are warned in advance they are about to view illegal material.

The social media giants are also being encouraged to use “counter speech” tactics such as posting positive messages about Islam and Muslims to balance the flood of extremist messages.News_Image_File: Savvy social media...a screen shot from an Islamic State group affiliated Twitter account. Picture: AP.

Currently the onus for the countering of such extremist sites and propaganda has been reports from government agencies or the public but the social media companies have been asked to take greater direct accountability.

Last month ISIS spokesman Sheik Mohammad al-Adnani al-Shami used online forums to spread his message of hate and specifically to call for individual attacks on tawaghit (non-Muslims) in Australia and other Western countries including the US and UK. The call for crude random murders on home soil was a departure from organised and well-financed terrorist plots emanating from the Middle East.

Since April this year, ISIS has been using a free internet application that allows it to automatically send out posts and tweets with links to other content and in a single day have been posting 40,000 tweets aimed at inspiring and recruiting.

The new move also comes as it was revealed the lone wolf attack on the Canadian parliament last week by Muslim convert Michael Zehaf-Bideau came after he trawled websites extensively, including following a British hate preacher on Twitter.