ISIS hijacks Justin Bieber hashtag to share violent propaganda video

by Jeremy Mersereau

January 22, 2016

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The militant group posted a graphic video on Twitter using #JustinBieber.

In a bid to get the attention of Justin Bieber’s legion of young and (hopefully not very) impressionable fans, the Islamic State released a graphic propaganda video on Twitter earlier today, paired with the pop star’s hashtag for maximum visibility.

Titled “Message to the Islamic West”, the slickly-produced 15-minute video shows footage of various attacks and the execution of four men. It also shows purported footage of a suicide attack carried out by an ISIS fighter. Most tellingly, the video includes multiple exhortations for new recruits to join up.

With almost 74 million Twitter followers, it’s not hard to see why ISIS would want to cash in on Bieber’s popularity in order to get their message out. Statistically, at least of few of those 74 million pairs of eyeballs would be amenable to the Islamic State’s propaganda.

ISIS’ proficiency at social media as a recruitment tool is well known. Just this week, Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called for the campaign against the group to focus more attention on the digital battlefield of ideas.

“The Iraqi government and other anti-ISIL forces are not reacting quickly enough to contradict ISIL’s online messages which have been used both to recruit new fighters and demoralise those who oppose them, and we should help them with this,” Turnbull said in a speech in Washington earlier this week.

“Is it too late now to say sorry?” – Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, surrendering in an Instagram post hopefully being posted soon.

[h/t News.com.au]

Tags: Music, News, Isis, Justin Bieber

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