ALBAWABA - According to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shared exclusively with WIRED, ISIS created fake videos imitating news gurus Al Jazeera and CNN.
Earlier in March, a media outlet affiliated with ISIS launched its campaign with two YouTube channels pushing long-form videos promoting the group's propaganda. One of the channels published Arabic long videos branded with Al Jazeera logo, while the other channel had the CNN logo.
The videos also featured a real-time ticker along the bottom of the screen which changed to match the content being shown, WIRED reported.
The campaign included a network of social media accounts that appeared to be linked with news gurus, in an attempt to spread the group's ideology to new audiences.
Both news channels had a total of eight videos, four in each language, offering topics like ISIS' plans to expand across Africa and other territories, in addition to the ongoing war in Syria.
One of the videos posted promoted a counter story regarding the Crocus City Hall in Moscow later in March, in which Russia accused Ukraine of being accountable for, and claimed responsibility behind the mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 145+ people.
Moustafa Ayad, the executive director for Africa, the Middle East, and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, spoke to WIRED, regarding the fake news channels.
"It's the first time we've really seen a concerted effort by an Islamic State outlet to create this fake ecosystem of news that isn't branded as something that's affiliated with the Islamic State," he stated.
The videos remained up on the YouTube channels for a month and a half before being deleted; however, during that time, ISIS followers downloaded and reposted them on their accounts.
Some of those videos are still available online today because they were not added to the hash-sharing database that platforms use to coordinate the removal of terrorist content.
Each of the videos on YouTube racked up thousands of views, and while none of them went viral, it was "enough for the group to get some traction in circles outside where they would normally get traction and saw real people commenting under the videos," says Ayad.
