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Meet the Young Muslims Taking Back Social Media From ISIS...

Tuesday 23rd September 2014 | Osh

Our social networks are becoming a major arena in the battle against extremism. ISIS (or IS) have been using social media platforms, especially Twitter, to broadcast their most brutal crimes for over three months now.

It has been probably the darkest use of social media to date. The terrorist group's social media strategy has allowed it to not only traumatise innocent people browsing the web and being exposed to brutal images they didn't intend to see, but also to indoctrinate young people in the Islamic community, particularly the most socially vulnerable young men who feel marginalised or alienated from mainstream society in the UK and the West.

 

 

Now a counter-campaign to the ISIS propaganda machine has gained momentum and coverage, with young Muslims speaking out and making a stand against the extremists on-line. Using the Twitter hashtag #notinmyname, young Muslims are trying to reclaim the public perception of their religion from the extremists and terrorists who have through their idealogies portrayed Islam as a religion of violence and intolerance.

The project has been created by British charity Active Change in the Leytonstone, which has one of Britain's biggest Muslim communities. The intention is to show the wider world the moderate, peaceful face of Islam, which has always been regarded by the overwhelming majority of its followers as a religion of compassion and peace, totally divorced from the bogeyman version of Islamic culture that often gets played out in mainstream news coverage.

The coverage gotten by the #notinmyname campaign serves at least to balance against the flow of negative 'Muslim stories' that have virtually become a newspaper institution in the passed decade since 9/11.

The #notinmyname campaign also acts as a clear answer to that tired old question that seems to crop up somewhere every few weeks (if not on social media or in You Tube comments sections, then by the drunk dude in the pub). You know the one - that 'Why Don't Normal Muslims speak out against these extremists?' question.

In addition to #notinmyname, the hashtag #No2IS has been trending too.

 

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