ISIS Hijacks Justin Bieber Hashtag With Graphic Propaganda Video

Stay woke, before ISIS slides into your DMs.

Image via News.com.au

Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to type: The Islamic State is using Justin Bieber as a weapon.

A Twitter account allegedly attributed to the Islamic fundamentalist militant group (also known as ISIS or ISIL) shared a graphic propaganda video on Friday. Reportsclaim that the 15-minute, professionally produced clip includes numerous violent attacks, a suicide bombing, and the execution of four men, who are shot in the back of the head as they kneel on the ground. The video is accompanied with several hashtags, including #ISIS, #ISIL, and #JustinBieber. One of these things is not like the other. Titled Message to the Islamic West, the video’s ultimate goal seems to be recruitment.

Presumably, ISIS is looking to reach an impressionable segment of Bieber Hive, including the 74 million followers Justin has accumulated. According to this Twitter analytics tool, the #JustinBieber hashtag makes over four million timeline impressions every hour, so it’s a safe bet that the propaganda video reached more than a few Beliebers.

This news comes just days after Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull called for more attention to the online campaign against the Islamic State, ahead of a meeting with US President Barack Obama in Washington on Tuesday. “The Iraqi government and other anti-ISIL forces are not reacting quickly enough to contradict ISIL’s online messages which have been used both to recruit new fighters and demoralise those who oppose them, and we should help them with this,” Turnbull said.  

Turnbull is right. Stay woke, before ISIS slides into your DMs.

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