U.S. Government Trying to Get Good at Social Media to Crush ISIS

Social media used for more than sharing cat videos and memes? Groundbreaking.

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As the extremist terrorist group, ISIS, continues to kill innocent people, the U.S. government continues to try to find a way to combat the group. The newly hatched plan seems simple enough: become better at social media, defeat ISIS. You may be scratching your head, but it isn’t that far fetched considering the role social media has played in aiding the U.S. recently, like one man’s ISIS inspired plan to attack the U.S. capitol being foiled after the FBI discovered his alarming tweets. Or that time when an actual ISIS member accidentally geotagged his tweets. Perhaps the U.S. is taking a strategy cue from Japan, who used social media to launch an attack on ISIS by mocking the group via humorous photoshopping.

No, the U.S. government won’t be making memes anytime soon, but it does plan on using its own messaging to fight ISIS propaganda, according to the New York Times. In order to do so, it will require the help of the already established Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which deals with these type of situations, and new group, the Information Coordination Cell. These groups will communicate with people with perhaps more credibility, such as academics and leaders of the Muslim community that are anti-ISIS. 

Richard Stengel, a public diplomacy official of the State Department, told the NYT, "We’re getting beaten on volume, so the only way to compete is by aggregating, curating and amplifying existing content.” He added, "These guys aren’t BuzzFeed. They’re not invincible in social media."

So does this mean the government will be enlisting Buzzfeed to pick their brains about turning people into click baiting zombies? Probably not, but we’ll find out more about the government's plan of action when it gets explained more at length, which will reportedly be sometime this week. 

[via The Verge]

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