ISIS uses Twitter-bots to run aggressive propaganda
Researchers have found that ISIS is making efficient use of Twitter-bots to follow trending events in order to "rapidly and widely spread information related to specific hashtags". While there is nothing new about Twitter-bots, ISIS seems to be working on making its bots less detectable by increasing their sophistication. Anonymous has recently (or so it claims) taken down 25,000 ISIS bots on twitter.

People pose in front of a display showing the word 'cyber' in binary code, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica December 27, 2014. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

Twitter bots are the Islamic State's latest tool for spreading political propaganda.

These kinds of bots are nothing new. Businesses often program bots to post automated messages, and many Twitter users pay for bots as fake followers.

More than half of Internet traffic doesn't even come from humans — a recent study shows bots make up 56% of traffic.

The jihadi group has coded thousands of Twitter bots, which publish violent content, raise money, recruit members, and spread propaganda. The bots also jam activist communication on Twitter, silencing those who rebel against them.

Unlike harmless spam bots, ISIS's political bots manipulate public opinion, says PhD candidate Samuel Woolley, who has tracked and studied political bots for two years.

"We've seen ISIS use bots to rapidly and widely spread information related to specific hashtags," Woolley tells Tech Insider.

In a tactic called Twitter bombing, ISIS' bots latch onto trending hashtags and send out a flood of pro-ISIS messages. The tweets are an attempt to interrupt ongoing conversations with the hope that ISIS content seeps into popular discourse.

The bots have also posted propaganda on ISIS' app, "The Dawn of Glad Tidings" (commonly called "Dawn"), Wooley says. When users sign up for the app, it asks for access to a laundry list of personal data, like the user's hard drive and Wi-Fi connection.

ISIS' app, "The Dawn of Glad Tidings." Screenshot

After sign-up, pro-ISIS messages pop up on that person's Twitter feed. ISIS recruiters also promote "Dawn" as a way to stay connected to news about ISIS.

"Bots are used as tools of magnification," Woolley says. "They make the message of groups like ISIS seem much more popular than they actually are."

Now activists are fighting back.

Anonymous, the international "hacktivist" group, declared war against ISIS after the deadly attacks in Paris. The group wants to scrub all of the ISIS bots from the Internet, documenting its efforts under the hashtag #OpISIS.

In the past month, Anonymous shut down more than 25,000 ISIS bots on Twitter. This past weekend, the group crashed an ISIS site.

Anonymous is also encouraging amateur coders to join the online war. The group recently published a beginner's guide for suspending ISIS bot accounts. Meanwhile, ISIS produced a guide to combat hacks.

Woolley's team has its own recommendations for identifying political bots. Bots often:

Don't have a profile photo.

Follow a lot of people, but have few followers.

Repeatedly tweet the same messages.

Tweet things that don't make sense.

Can't hold a long conversation.

Even the most clever bots can't hold an intelligent conversation, but ISIS coders are working to make them seem more human-like, Woolley says. With machine learning, bots are improving themselves every day.

"As code for bots gets better, the bots will get more sophisticated," Woolley says. "Soon, the things they can do will be more complex."