Social media is the cornerstone of recruitment and planning for all militant networks
Social media is the cornerstone of recruitment and planning for all militant networks; nothing more so than encrypted chat platforms. Recent media reports have been misleading regarding Neo-Nazi use of Telegram being hampered by security sweeps on the platform. While TRAC noted that a dozen or so accounts were taken down in late June 2020, since that time Telegram use has gone unabated on the encrypted platform. With over a billion users worldwide, Telegram now also attracts anarchists as well. Though European anarchists continue to prefer private blogs for communication, North American anarchists quietly entered the Telegram space in 2020. Islamic State and AQ both continue diffuse across multiple platforms, but their foreign language outlets remain unscathed on Telegram.