US's Centcom Counters ISIL Propaganda

Taking Back the Space

The “Iraqi on the street” is the audience the DET seeks to reach in its counter-ISIL efforts, officials said, and they reported that a “groundswell” of Iraqis took to Twitter in late May, right around the time Iraqi security forces began the campaign to retake Fallujah.

The DET “amplified” a popular meme that translated to “Iraqis tweeting in Iraqi.” That is, in the Iraqi dialect, one official said. “And so that started kind of a meme throughout the region. They took the space back.”

An official noted, “For a couple of weeks there, in the Arab world, Iraq was the top Twitter user.”

Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve has also weakened ISIL’s hold in the cyber domain by destroying some of the facilities the group used to produce its propaganda products, Centcom officials said.

Web Operations and MISO

Centcom’s other counter-ISIL social media-based effort goes by the name of Web Ops, an effort involving military information support to operations -- what used to be known as psychological operations. An official explained, “We’re concerned with foreign audiences only, not domestic, whereas public affairs interacts with both.”

Web Ops involves about 120 people. The group coordinates with the DET, coalition partners and the State Department to ensure themes and messages are consistent, officials said.

An official who works with Web Ops said ISIL’s propaganda efforts have altered in the past two years. “In 2014, when ISIL took Mosul, they maintained a dozen official [social media] accounts that said ‘We Are ISIL,’ the official said. “They also relied on several dozen ‘fanboy’ accounts which could boast upwards of 100,000 followers. So in terms of official messaging and in terms of unofficial support messaging, ISIL could quickly and easily reach hundreds of thousands of supporters and really the whole world with minimal effort.”

The official continued, “But since 2014, a combination of aggressive suspensions from social media companies, attrition and decrease in morale in ISIL’s own ranks -- which we’ve seen play out and we’ve seen them express this; that there’s a loss in morale --  and the third element would be counter-efforts from both governmental and nongovernmental entities. A combination of those three has gradually degraded ISIL’s footprint, ISIL’s ability to quickly and easily reach the masses.”