Thread by @ToreRHamming

On 21 Nov, @Europol strongly assisted by @telegram initiated a campaign to ban and delete Jihadis and their material on the platform in the hitherto most successful online counter-offensive. But, as described by several of my colleagues, it also kickstarted several new dynamics!

At first, the crackdown was mainly focused on Telegram and targeted both AQ and IS elements - official and supporter accounts.
This led Jihadis to experiment with and migrate to new platforms: @tamtamchat, Hoop, Rocket.chat etc..

None of these migrations were particularly successful, however, but for various reasons. @tamtamchat was extraordinarily effective beginning its own crackdown on IS accounts, while the other two platforms appear rather inappropriate for mass consumption.

What we see now is:

- official IS accounts are back on @telegram (Nashir)
- AQ almost entirely decimated on Telegram just as IS supporter networks (who still maintain a presence on @tamtamchat)
- @Twitter is becoming the new-old thing
- Jihadi ideologues is also being targeted

On @twitter presence:
- The Islamic State is reviving its activity on Twitter with numerous accounts mainly sharing links to other platforms
- Ideologues, once banned from Twitter, are now back

AQ is left as the real loser at this point as they have not managed to find a new digital home that suits its purpose. What they have though is several active websites (yeah, regular websites) sharing its propaganda

The recent crackdown thus entails that some extremist material is much harder to find, while other has become more easily available. Even @Facebook is being heavily used in national contexts. This just stresses how important it is that all platforms engage in concerted efforts!