6.6 C
New York
Friday, March 29, 2024

How Terror Group ISIS Is Using Facebook To Raise Money [LOOK]

Must read

T-shirts, hoodies and even toy figurines bearing the ISIS logo are being sold on online and marketed across social media.

For around $10 you can buy an ISIS shirt with the militant group’s logo and phrases printed on it like “We are all ISIS” and “Fight for Freedom, Until the Last Drop of Blood.”

A toy soldier available on Rezji.com, an Indonesian site which by Tuesday could not be accessed, holds a gun in its hands and an ISIS flag with the Islamic tenet: “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God.”

The websites are marketing the ISIS paraphernalia across social media. Facebook has been removing the pages once the media alerts them to their existence.

Merchandise sold by ISIS or their affiliates on Facebook and other online media outlets
Merchandise sold by ISIS or their affiliates on Facebook and other online media outlets

“Where hateful content is posted and reported, Facebook removes it and disables accounts of those responsible,” a Facebook spokesperson told CNN via email.

CNN alerted Twitter to some of the merchants’ pages on that social network, but Twitter declined to comment.

Using merchandise to market itself as “cool” is a one of the common propaganda tools ISIS uses, according to researcher Hassan Hassan of the Delma Institute in Dubai.

“The point is to encourage people to get out there and join the trend,” Hassan said.

Many of the websites with the merchandise come from Indonesia.

While Middle East experts are unsure whether ISIS is manufacturing the products, terrorism researcher J.M. Berger says he wouldn’t be surprised if the money ends up going to ISIS.

“ISIS has a big base of support in Southeast Asia — a long history with Islamism and jihadism. A number of foreign fighters come from the region,” Berger wrote in an email to CNN.

“Much radical activity is local: vigilante gangs and mainstream politics. For those who find those options lacking, ISIS seems to be the leading choice of outlet.”

While some of the Indonesian manufacturers of the ISIS merchandise may be opportunistic capitalists, others may be sympathetic to ISIS.

On the Twitter feed of the Rezji manufacturers, they describe themselves in the Indonesian language as “distributors of anti-Western culture” and state “together we stand with you against the tyrants.”

In early 2014, the Institute for the Policy and Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) published a report that said the Syrian conflict was attracting foreign fighters from Indonesia.

“Indonesian extremists are more engaged by the conflict in Syria than by any other foreign war in recent memory, including Afghanistan and Iraq,” the report said.

“As far as we know the number of Indonesian combatants is still in the dozens.”

Read More

More articles

- Advertisement -The Fast Track to Earning Income as a Publisher
- Advertisement -The Fast Track to Earning Income as a Publisher
- Advertisement -Top 20 Blogs Lifestyle

Latest article