Talibans internet strategy

The Taliban understands that one of the main battlefields is the media; so the online battle for the hearts and minds is one of the pillars of their propagandacampaignn strategy.

So, this week one article popped up about the Taliban’s  internet strategy!

Read it, its a very interesting analysis of the smart way social media is employed to spread the Talibans message. And it might be something some western powers can learn from. One of the ways to counter this is allowing social media by individual soldiers even more, to counter claims by the Taliban on those social media. Remember: the first one to get his pictures and messages out, sets the bar.

Does the US military finally GET IT?

Great job opening at the US military!

It looks like the Taliban still is doing a better job as the US military in employing social media to win hearts and minds for their cause. Recent english tweeting (see my earlier post) , online video’s and sms terrormessages are helping the Taliban to keep a firm grip on the local society in Afhganistan.

Anyone who has some understanding of the way social media is being used in Afghanistan and Iraq thinks: What else is new? But hey, good thing the military is coming to terms with social media at last. So, in order to counter the Taliban’s social media presence, the US military is hiring social media content managers to help them win the strategic battle online for hearts and minds.

I would like to advice to the US military that they start loosening up on allowing their own troops using social media. In my masterthesis i wrote last year, i found that the use of social media by US personell in the Iraq war showed differences with official statements, but the fundamental story is the same: We (the US military) are their for the right cause, and we do that job proudly. We are not risking our lives for nothing in the sanbox over there. We are doing our best, and the bad guys (who brought this mess upon themselves) are the ones paying the price.

So, instead of just hiring some social media savvy geek they should also realize that they have thousands of potential spokespersones on the ground right now. Tap into that potential and see what happens!  The caution that should be taking with Opsec information, is again the excuse to restrict social media. Stop doing that so much, loose that knee-jerk response!

The Pentagon should believe in the power and professional capacities of your own troops. Its not the newsmedia, its not some story hungry sleeping in a fivestar hotel embedded CNN-hotshot. Its your own troops ,and they are eager to tell the story that traditional media is ,in their eyes, not covering by a bit.

And remember: It is just like the ‘real’ war fought on the ground: the Taliban has the classic guerilla advantage: America has to win, they just dont have to lose.

For the job description, look here (tnx @spencerackerman from Wired.com)

@ Pentagon: want to hire me? you will have your ways of finding me online, i guess 🙂

 

Beating the Tweeting

Short thought on Tweeting about a short article i read a few minutes ago:

Since recently, the Taliban have started to tweet about their ‘successes’ in English. It shows, just as the homevideo’s of Osama BL watching his own recorded messages to see how he looks, that the Taliban know that image is everything.

It also shows that maybe the image is more important than the action itself. In a report in 2007, the head of the US Bagdad press agency wrote that the insurgency is using videos to exgaterate there successes. In some cases he even thought that they were blowing stuff up especially for the pictures.  The US military did not respond well to those attempts to frame the Iraq war to their own advantage.

In this case its the same situation. The Taliban has to be fought online as well. In order to do that, the US military must allow their personel to Tweet againt the Taliban. This way it is possible to undermine the framingcapabilities the Taliban have.  They understand that fear is important to their cause.

Let the military use overwhelming tweeting force to beating the tweeting of the Taliban, who are not exactly gathering millions of followers , yet.

BUT!: Dont make the mistake that it is possible to do this in a centralised manner. Decentralise, then tweet the hell out of them if the Taliban tries to use Social media to their advantage again.

The war on terror is won in the minds of its audience, so let the individual soldier fight this war as well.