Thread by @ISDglobal

For over a year, ISD researchers delved into the little known or understood Salafi community of “Islamogram.” What they found was a fundamental shift in Gen-Z Salafi activism, where the aesthetics & tropes of the alt-right are fueling a convergence unlike we’ve seen before. 🧵

Thousands of young Salafis, spanning a nebulous ideological spectrum are spread across social media and gaming platforms. While most of their narratives are innocuous, it is clear they are waging a culture war where their most ardent allies are the alt-right. 2/

Coming of age during the height of the Global War on Terror, they are fully aware of being a community under attack, continually surveilled and fighting for clear identities. Gen-Z Salafis have found that in the well-trodden culture wars fought by the alt-right. 3/

They are as much influenced by these dynamics as they are by how the internet has morphed and shifted, becoming an increasingly rabid place inhabited by conspiracists, fascists and fringe ideologues and ideologies. 4/

They fight what can only be defined as “isms,” liberalism, both within the Muslim community, as well as in the West. Their battle is an existential crisis of identity, one that must be won at all costs. Even if it means appropriating the narratives of “enemies.” 5/

The frontlines of this battle are on FB, Instagram, Reddit, Discord & Telegram. Islamogram influencers on Instagram had a collective follower base of 162,338. In 1 year, the top 30 have received 2.2 million views of their memes and edit videos, growing their following by 20% 6/

On FB, researchers found 21 central pages & groups with a collective following of 88,596. 6 pages & groups, representing 22% of the overall following, were engaged in explicitly Salafi-jihadist meme production, mostly in Arabic and supportive of IS and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham 7/

On Reddit, 3 spaces affiliated with Islamogram influencers had a collective subscriber base of 7,203. The largest of these was dedicated to promoting pan-Islamism, expressing support for Hamas and the Taliban, as well as the Chechnyan and Bosnian jihads. 8/

Researchers found 22 Islamogram channels on Telegram, with a collective following of 24,709, connected to or promoted by Islamogram influencers on Instagram. ~50% of these shared memes & edit videos in support of groups such as Hamas, the Taliban, HTS and, in some cases, IS. 9/

On Discord, researchers found a small, tight-knit community of Islamogram influencers and their followers across 6 servers. These 6servers had a collective membership of 4,478. There young Salafis derided George Floyd, sided with Adolf Hitler, and shared bomb-making material. 10/

Across these six platforms, researchers collected 5,467 memes and 3,524 videos produced by a dedicated set of influencers. ISD researchers not only analysed each piece of content, but also developed a method of drawing distinctions between different Salafi communities. 11/

So what does it mean? The contours of the Salafi ecosystem online are shifting, with young Salafis becoming “ideologically elastic,” drawing on noxious tropes and imagery of the alt-right while ultimately grounding themselves in Salafi mores. It's a worrying future. 12/

Read the full Islamogram report, as well as the rest of our Gen Z and Digital Salafism series, here: isdglobal.org/isd-publicatio…
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