Report: Twitter Traffic from ISIS Down 45 Percent Over Past Two Years

The United States has taken the fight against ISIS to the digital battlefield, and has found success countering ISIS propaganda on the most unlikely of platforms: Twitter.

According to current U.S. government figures, Twitter traffic for ISIS has dropped 45 percent over the previous two years. Keeping ISIS quieter on the social network requires a variety of efforts, including messages designed to mix up ISIS propaganda and new help from Twitter for combatting terrorism-promoting content.

As for why the government is focusing its efforts on Twitter, that appears to be one of the easier ways for ISIS to reach as many people as possible. The government acknowledges that it's possible that its efforts to counter ISIS messaging on Twitter could also be pushing ISIS supporters to other social networks. It's doubtful that these networks have as wide a reach as Twitter, though. And once ISIS turns to secure social networks like WhatsApp or Telegram, then it's more likely supporters are messaging logistics than straight-up propaganda—and that's a different kind of investigation at that point.

"We're denying ISIL the ability to operate uncontested online, and we're seeing their social media presence decline," said Michael Lumpkin, director of the Global Engagement Center, in an interview with the Associated Press.

He later added that "anti-ISIL audiences are increasingly vocal on social media. This only weakens ISIL's ability to recruit, a key aim of our messaging efforts."

When the government's anti-ISIS campaigns started on Twitter, efforts were stymied by some challenges, including the fact that messages and other anti-ISIS propaganda the government was sending out were predominantly in English, not Arabic. The U.S. government's languages and techniques for disseminating these kinds of messages have since changed. Now, instead of just blasting out English content itself, the government relies on other Muslim governments, schools, advocacy groups, and recognized community and religious leaders to send out anti-ISIS messaging (mostly in Arabic).