Fighting ISIS With Humor!

It must be ISIS day today. Even though I just posted the Twofer entry, I couldn’t resist passing along this article from the Economist.

In my earlier posting I noted that there were a number of forces at play:

1.     “The use of offensive cyber weapons against a non-traditional enemy.

2.     The employment of cyber influence along with traditional Military Information Support Operations (MISO).

3.     The execution of a coordinated set of operations involving both.

4.     Injection of other resources be they COTS, contract, mercenary or volunteers.”

According to a July 14^th article from the Economist “Fighting Islamic State with laughter and a listening ear “ (see: http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/teasing-terrorists, which is also the photo source) The administrator of the effort, who wished to remain anonymous for obvious reasons claimed that the effort is run by “claims that it is run by a group of volunteer activist lawyers, journalists and graphic designers from across the Arab world (including some in IS-held territories).”, or #4 on my list above.

The article states: “The Bighdaddy show, a collection of short videos satirising IS, is named after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, IS’s leader.”

According to the article it’s a regional effort on Social Media. Of course, there are no Nielsen ratings for Social Media.  I’m not an Arabic speaker, so I can’t comment on whether or not nuances of the language are appropriate, but I am of the opinion that these kinds of efforts are likely to be more effective than those that are produced beyond the area.