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ellievhall's profile
Ellie Hall
Ellie Hall
Ellie Hall
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@ellievhall

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Ellie HallVerified account

@ellievhall

Senior Reporter @BuzzFeedNews. Investigator. Tell me things people should know: ellie.hall@buzzfeed.com

Washington, DC
buzzfeednews.com/author/ellievh…
Joined August 2008

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    Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

    I spent a good part of 2 years reporting on ISIS internet and how the group uses social media — in 2019 it's mind-boggling to me how well the coordinated cross-platform effort to remove them from the internet worked and how there hasn't been a similar one for white supremacists.

    8:37 AM - 16 Mar 2019
    • 9,738 Retweets
    • 33,403 Likes
    • Nicole Tay gavin (who is back in town) little black drink Maggie (she/her) WylieDeeds joseph spivak Neil Kight AliceInBondageLand Ms. Len🦂🗽🕵🏾‍♀️📝🖌️📚
    200 replies 9,738 retweets 33,403 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        From a 2016 @gwupoe report on Twitter extremism: "The white nationalist datasets examined outperformed ISIS in most current metrics and many historical metrics. White nationalists and Nazis had substantially higher follower counts than ISIS supporters, and tweeted more often."

        6 replies 657 retweets 1,995 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        "The clear advantage enjoyed by white nationalists was attributable in part to the effects of aggressive suspensions of accounts associated with ISIS networks." Source: Sept. 2016 @gwupoe study of Twitter extremism by @intelwire: https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/downloads/Nazis%20v.%20ISIS.pdf …

        4 replies 316 retweets 1,280 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        Adding to this: Twitter / Facebook / YouTube began cracking down on ISIS content in earnest — seeking it out and suspending accounts — after the group released the horrific video of James Foley's execution in Aug. 2014.

        2 replies 227 retweets 1,076 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        The Christchurch shooter livestreamed his attack. The video was disseminated across the internet even as platforms desperately worked to remove it.

        3 replies 186 retweets 1,060 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        It will be interesting to see if platforms implement a similar "zero-tolerance, you post this video or a still image from it and you're permabanned" policy with the Christchurch attack video.

        13 replies 284 retweets 1,573 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        Since there seems to be interest in this! Before platforms began cracking down, I wrote a lot of stories about how ISIS members — primarily women — used social media. The vast majority of the time, these ISIS accounts would be up until I asked Facebook/Twitter for comment.

        3 replies 128 retweets 885 likes
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      8. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        (It's been almost 5 years, and while platforms have done a pretty thorough job of purging ISIS social media accounts, this still is a huge issue. Both Facebook and Twitter have said recently that they rely on journalists for content moderation: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbwvx/journalists-social-media-platforms-unpaid-content-moderators-twitter-facebook-instagram …)

        6 replies 198 retweets 849 likes
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      9. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        Since the platforms weren't being proactive in getting rid of ISIS members and their supporters, users began to do it for them. Groups formed. People started teaching others how to find / report these posts not just to platforms but host sites that unknowingly hosted ISIS content

        6 replies 123 retweets 736 likes
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      10. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        Also, this content wasn't just propaganda and/or official ISIS videos. Members, especially women, posted photos, anecdotes about their lives — they invited people into their world with the unspoken understanding that they were there to help if you wanted to join that world.

        2 replies 83 retweets 548 likes
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      11. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        In 2015, I identified Hoda Muthana through her militant Twitter account and interviewed her and her father. Talking with Hoda, it became clear that she had been radicalized by this "sisterhood" that she found online:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-with-an-american-in-isis …

        2 replies 111 retweets 584 likes
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      12. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 16 Mar 2019

        The sense of community and intimacy with others that is fostered by social media was a big part of why ISIS was good at radicalizing and recruiting online.

        14 replies 115 retweets 677 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        For those interested! Some of my stories from over the years about ISIS, the internet, social media, and how they used these platforms to recruit and radicalize:

        1 reply 16 retweets 195 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        1.) My first story about about the online networks of female ISIS supporters and members from 2014, focusing on the extensive social media presence of 20-year-old Aqsa Mahmood, who ran away from her home in Scotland to join the group:https://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-online-world-of-the-women-of-isis …

        1 reply 24 retweets 176 likes
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      15. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        2.) I followed up this story 6 months later. Many of the women from my 1st piece were still online w/ new accounts. Their posts purposefully made ISIS life look attractive, with selfies, cat photos, cute kids — and anecdotes about owning Yazidi slaves:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/inside-the-lives-of-the-wives-and-widows-of-isis …

        2 replies 19 retweets 157 likes
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      16. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        3.) Going through the tweets for that story, I traced the account of a female ISIS member back to TN. I spent weeks in Chattanooga reporting out the story of Ariel Bradley, a homeschooled, evangelical Christian, and how she became an ISIS wife and mother:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/woman-journey-from-chattanooga-to-isis …

        4 replies 23 retweets 169 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        4.) When then-15-year-old Shamima Begum (now fighting to return to the UK) joined ISIS in 2015, I wrote about how Twitter facilitated her recruitment and that of many other young women/girls — including an 18-year-old who live-tweeted her trip to Syria:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/how-isis-uses-twitter-to-recruit-women#.ijL5eEZ0w …

        2 replies 26 retweets 147 likes
        Show this thread
      18. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        5.) After 3 American teenage girls tried to join ISIS — they were detained in Germany and sent home to their parents — I wrote about how their social media accounts connected them with ISIS members and telegraphed their growing radicalism before they left:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/inside-the-online-world-of-three-teens-who-allegedly-wanted …

        1 reply 23 retweets 144 likes
        Show this thread
      19. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        6.) I also wrote about one of the first women to join, then escape ISIS and travel back to her home country — Dutch citizen Sterlina Petalo. She was arrested upon her return to the Netherlands, but charges were eventually dropped due to lack of evidence:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/dutch-girls-who-ran-away-to-join-isis-rescued-by-her-mother …

        1 reply 11 retweets 133 likes
        Show this thread
      20. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        7.) The most famous ISIS member on the internet, Dutch jihadi Israfil Yilmaz aka "Chechclear" used multiple social media platforms for YEARS to talk about his life, post cat pics, and spread the group's message. I wrote about his use of Tumblr in Nov. 2015https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/ask-a-jihadi-an-isis-fighters-blog-about-life-in-syria …

        1 reply 11 retweets 127 likes
        Show this thread
      21. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        8.) Finally, I want to end the list with my story about how ISIS members — men and women — joked on social media about the Yazidi women and girls they enslaved and raped, and made posts justifying their treatment of them:https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/this-is-how-isis-members-justify-sexual-slavery …

        3 replies 24 retweets 134 likes
        Show this thread
      22. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        Until the crackdown, ISIS posts with graphic content — videos of horrific executions, photos of severed hands and heads, men being crucified while still alive, or fighters and even children posing with dead bodies — were the easiest to report/get taken down for obvious reasons.

        2 replies 13 retweets 118 likes
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      23. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        Here's the thing, though. The posts w/ stories, the people who were there to listen, to understand, to answer questions, to convince that everyone else was wrong and only their way of thinking was correct? From what I saw, that was the most dangerous ISIS content on the internet.

        2 replies 27 retweets 162 likes
        Show this thread
      24. Ellie Hall‏Verified account @ellievhall 17 Mar 2019

        As I said in my first tweet, platforms found a way to basically eliminate ISIS internet — by mid-2016, Twitter was suspending new ISIS accounts within minutes of their creation. Tools appear to exist. It remains to be seen if they'll be used against white supremacists. /FIN

        11 replies 157 retweets 382 likes
        Show this thread
      25. End of conversation

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