When Criminals and Terrorists Communicate In Real Time

theodp writes "CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen notes that the assault on the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi by armed gunmen 'was the first major terrorist attack in history in which the group that mounted the operation used Twitter to announce to the world it was responsible. The group then quickly tweeted what its rationale was for the attack and also gave operational details of the assault — all in real time.' During the massacre, a Twitter account purportedly used by the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab tweeted, 'Like it or loathe it! our mujahideen confirmed all executions were point blank range!' The group also wrote, '#Westgate: a 14-hour standoff relayed in 1400 rounds of bullets and 140 characters of vengeance and still ongoing. Good morning Kenya!' So, what's in store for our brave new world of Social Media? 'The next logical step,' fears Bergen, 'will be for terrorists to cover their deadly operations using their own real-time live video feeds linked to sites such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. If that happens, terrorist attacks will become a form of theater in which terrorists not only get to write the play but also act as the primary producers of the coverage of the event.'"

Comments

But does it change anything?

[Xest]

I think the Westgate attack has simply strengthened Kenya's resolve to sort out Somalia, and has turned even more people against the militants.

If they start doing live feeds and start "controlling" reporting of the events they'll just make even more people hate them and make people even more determined to defeat them.

Terrorism is about as effective as torture.

Re:But does it change anything?

[gl4ss]

yeah so how does this differ from red terror of '60s?
not one bit.

publicity hunting terrorists hunt for publicity, newsflashs at 19.00.

Re:But does it change anything?

[Antipater]

I think you're partially right and partially wrong. Terrorism can be effective, but only when it creates fear in a populace (that's a tautology, actually). What creates fear is not hurting and killing people, it's hurting and killing people with impunity. If someone punches you in the face, and then you fight back and beat them to a bloody pulp, you're not going to be afraid of them. If someone punches you in the face and easily defends against your attempts to retaliate, then the fear starts.

The Westgate attackers were, afaik, all captured or killed. Had they struck, killed a bunch of people, and then faded away into the shadows, then I think there would be a lot more fear shown by the Kenyan people. Or if Kenyan forces are defeated in Somalia, and Somalian terrorists continue to attack Kenya, then I think there will be more fear. But the current situation, where the Kenyans have been thus far quite successful in driving al Shabaab from its bases and then in bottling up their retaliatory strike, brings to mind more an animal in its death throes than something to be feared.

Re:But does it change anything?

[ColdWetDog]

Actually it does differ. The 'Red Terror' (Socialist / Communist / ????) from the 1960's had a message they were trying to impart to the proletariat. Arise and shake off your chains. The Mujahedin / Muslim Radicals want to convert other non aligned Muslims to the cause (and then wipe out everyone else). There are different targets to the message and qualitatively and quantitatively different styles to the broadcast of the message.

I think most Westerners don't see that because blatant hate speech / incitement to violence is essentially heavily censored and things aren't so bad in (most) of the West as to have a huge pool of angry (usually) young men with nothing to lose.

TL;DR - YOU are not the target of these ads.

Re:But does it change anything?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Depends on the country, I suppose. It appears that some of the vids coming out of Syria are doing a good job of convincing young muslims not to go and fight/die in a crappy jihad. And they're doing an even better job convincing the parents to convince their kids not to go.

In this case, confronting would-be supporters with the raw reality instead of a romantic picture of people fighting for their beliefs or freedom, may well work against the terrorists, losing them those supporters. With some luck the terrorists will be marginalized like ETA or the RAF (both the German and Colombian one).

And?

[Minwee]

Aside from the question of who gets to act as producer, how is this different from using CNN to do the same thing?

Re:And?

[SirGarlon]

At first I was thinking it's no different -- television and radio have been abetting terrorists forever by sensaltionalizing on their attacks and keeping the stories in front of the public for weeks -- but then I realized there is a difference: editorial control. Independent media can filter and spin the message in the way that serves the media's interests (keeping people glued to their televisions). The terrorists want that control for themselves, to serve their own agenda.

Re:First time in history?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

And the Mumbai guys were coordinating over BBM... Probably the last time RIM was on the winning side of anything.

Re:False moral equivalency

[g0bshiTe]

Man if my wife saw a credit charge to someone under the label "jizyah", do you know what hell I'd have trying to prove that's not a pr0n charge?

Re:choosing sides

[pixelpusher220]

Basically they're saying instead of watching OJ's bronco from the air, we'll get live feed from INSIDE it. Reality TV for criminals. I see slashdotting's on the horizon.

Shutting off feed in 3, 2, 1

[mbone]

This will work the first time, maybe. After that, the feeds will be shut off quickly.

I could see real-time terrorists being fed a honeytrap version of social media, tailored for them, with certain... inaccuracies for their enjoyment. THAT would be a sensible employment of the NSA's computer power.

Good

[Hatta]

I'm not seeing a downside to this. It's not like they are getting good PR out of it. Anything that gets information out of the control of the main stream media, and lets people make up their own minds is a good thing. It's OK for us to listen to their message, and condemn them when we decide that it is evil on our own. We don't need CNN to do that for us.

Terrorism == theater

[mbone]

True terrorism (as opposed to guerilla actions conveniently labeled as terrorism) has always been theater. How else are masses of people going to get terrorized?

Good.

[TheCarp]

Seriously. Good. I hope they do more of this. If they keep going it will backfire on them faster than a semtex shockwave through the bodies of apostates in the sears tower (hey there NSA: stop reading, start leaking).

I know these guys, some of them, are scholarly and study terrorism. They read books by IRA members, and all that good stuff. They didn't learn some big lessons.

The single biggest lesson the US military learned in Viet Nam was this: Civilians hate real war. Nothing has so turned people against war and against supporting it like seeing the real true brutality of it all over their TV screens and front page.

The US military learned that, which is why, by the time the gulf war happened, reporters were being shuttled around to get to the scene right after the bodies were moved, and real brutality over.

Also.... one disagreement I have with the article is that this is such a huge change, or will change terrorism. It has ALWAYS been a media stunt. Terror attacks are not serious existential threats, they are media grabs. This is just taking it to its next logical step.

Live terrorism channel. Great.

[Dr. Spork]

I wonder who will be the first to buy ads on the live terrorism channel. In the 80's, a friend of mine wrote a short story about a future in which anyone could have their own television channel, with real-time viewer tracking. Money would pour in real time into their bank accounts in proportion to how many viewers their channel had. Then somebody had the idea to do a live murder spree and police chase on their channel, which made them very rich, very quickly. So, yeah, we're getting close.