Fergie's Tech Blog

Internet has 'given Al Qaeda wings' claims BBC

John Lettice writes in The Register:

Al Qaeda is now a "global brand driven by the power of the world wide web", and media-savvy cyberjihadis are manipulating the internet for training, recruitment and propaganda, according to the first of a three part series on "The New al Qaeda" broadcast on Monday 25th July) on BBC2. "The internet," says programme-maker Peter Taylor, "has given it wings." These apparent bombshells, however, appear to be based on a number of unremarkable discoveries, such as that terrorists have computers, that cheap video cameras allow them to film attacks and executions and distribute the results via the internet, and that there's stuff on the internet you might not like but can't necessarily get much of a lid on.

Actually the tagline's pretty unremarkable as well, because al Qaeda is a global brand, and that brand is indeed "driven by the power of the internet." Among other things... But Taylor's sensationalised focus on the internet obscures the truth that al Qaeda has other lines of business we should probably be a little bit more concerned about, and his determination to find Al Qaeda connections to bit players merely constructs an electronic version of the simplistic analysis of al Qaeda as a hierarchical, controlling organisation. The reality is a lot more complex and dangerous than that, with even the US administration beginning to talk of the threat as "'Islamist extremism', not just al-Qaeda (see report).

posted by Fergie @ 7/27/2005 06:15:00 AM