Europol web unit to hunt extremists behind Isis social media propaganda

A new Europe-wide police unit is being set up to scour the Internet for the ring leaders behind Islamic State’s social media propaganda campaign, which it has used to recruit foreign fighters and jihadi brides. The police team will seek to track down the key figures behind the estimated 100,000 tweets a day pumped out from 45,000 to 50,000 accounts linked to the Islamist terror group, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria. Run by the European police agency Europol, it will start work on July 1, with a remit to take down Isis accounts within two hours of them being detected.

Europol’s director, Rob Wainwright, said that the new Internet referral unit would monitor social media output to identify people who might be vulnerable and those preying on them. He said: “Who is it reaching out to young people, in particular, by social media, to get them to come, in the first place? It’s very difficult because of the dynamic nature of social media.” The director added that the police team would be working with social media companies to identify the most important accounts operating in a range of languages that are “underpinning what Isis are doing”. Europol said it would not name the social media firms who have agreed to help the police. It will use network analytics to identify the most active accounts, such as those pumping out the most messages and those part of an established online community.