Moderation of terrorist content since October 7th and a lack of adversarial shift

On October 7, 2023, militants from Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) al-Quds Brigades broke through checkpoints and military positions at the border of Gaza and Israel, entering Israeli territory. In an operation the perpetrators branded “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the attackers overwhelmed nearby Israeli military positions and killed at least 1,269 people, many of whom were civilians, in nearby Kibbutzim and at the Supernova music festival.

Footage from the attacks quickly went viral on mainstream social media as the attacks unfolded. Many of these images and videos produced by the attack perpetrators were stamped with the official branding of the al-Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and shared widely from official Telegram channels. As the violence unfolded, pre-prepared videos of the planning of the attack were released, and Abu Obeda, the spokesperson of the al-Qassam Brigades, gave updates and statements outlining the groups narrative of the attacks.

Hamas and the PIJ have long had a sophisticated network of online propaganda with an official presence on Telegram and their own suite of websites. The groups had previously shifted their methods of sharing propaganda after a crackdown on their presence on mainstream platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

The groups shifted to a reliance on their own websites, key official Telegram channels, the development of an al-Qassam Brigades app to share propaganda, and a wider network of supporters less clearly affiliated with the groups sharing related content on mainstream social media. Hamas websites were disrupted by hackers on October 7th, and Telegram became the crucial platform for Hamas and the PIJ disseminating attack-related images, videos, and other propaganda.

Online Dissemination

In the wake of the attacks several efforts were made to disrupt the online networks of Hamas and the PIJ. Presumably under pressure from Google, Telegram blocked access to Hamas Telegram channels for Android users. Hamas and PIJ websites were disrupted. Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, said on 13 October that the platform would not remove key Hamas channels as doing so in his view would “destroy this source of information” and risk worsening “an already dire situation.” In the following weeks several key Telegram channels were removed entirely. However, al-Qassam Brigade Telegram channels assessed by our team to be official were not removed until December.

In response to increased online counterterrorism pressure and content moderation on preferred platforms, terrorist groups have displayed a history of adversarial shifts moving to new methods of sharing content and hosting their networks on increasingly fringe or self-hosted spaces. In the months following the attacks of October 7th and the Israeli invasion of Gaza, Hamas and the PIJ have not altered their methods of disseminating content online, with Telegram channels, the al-Qassam Brigade app, and their suite of websites remaining central and largely stable dissemination spaces. This suggests a lack of effective action against their key online spaces.

...terrorist groups have displayed a history of adversarial shifts moving to new methods of sharing content and hosting their networks on increasingly fringe or self-hosted spaces.

Since October 7th data gathered by researchers at Dublin City University and Swansea University as part of Tech Against Terrorism Europe displays consistency in the methods used by the groups to share their propaganda online. Our data consists of 2,932 posts containing official Hamas (al-Qassam Brigades) or PIJ (al-Quds Brigade) propaganda shared across 15 channels hosted on three platforms. This snapshot of the group’s propaganda is based on monitoring key seed channels assessed to be prolific disseminators of the group’s official propaganda. While this is not representative of the wider network of pro-Hamas propaganda, our project has closely monitored the official output of the groups. Most of this content (99.52%) has been shared through Telegram or Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah websites. While this overwhelming percentage can be attributed in part to our project’s collection methods, other groups monitored by our team such as the Islamic State have hosted content on a much wider array of platforms.

The continued Hamas and PIJ presence on well-established Telegram channels marks a contrast with other violent Islamist groups such as the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and al-Shabaab, which have all shifted their online propaganda dissemination strategies following increased counterterrorism pressure in the past. The prominence of websites hosting Hamas and PIJ content aligns with a wider concern of the long-standing stability of terrorist-operated websites, which have become increasingly prominent for a wide range of terrorist groups and remain difficult to disrupt. The pseudo-state status of terrorist groups like Hamas may also play a role in the lack of moderation of their content online. Unlike groups like the Islamic State, they are not as widely designated as a terrorist group around the world and have not faced as much online counterterrorism pressure. 

Differential disruption of jihadist terrorist content has been noted by previous research and may be the case for Hamas due to its unique position as a governing authority. This may explain the initial reluctance of Telegram to remove al-Qassam Brigade channels, the long-term resilience of the group’s websites, and the lack of disruption for new Telegram channels that emerged in the wake of the attacks and following Telegram’s disruption of existing channels.

Developments since October 7th

Since October our team has monitored the emergence of new Telegram channels acting as aggregators of propaganda linked to the conflict including Hamas and PIJ propaganda alongside Hezbollah- and IRGC-linked groups. These channels have been promoting Hamas and PIJ content framed as part of a wide range of propaganda related to the October 7th attacks and the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and linking the narrative to a wider regional network of actors. Further, our team has detected 298 items of official Hamas and PIJ propaganda shared through Hezbollah websites since October 7th. The hosting of this propaganda on prominent Hezbollah websites may have mitigated the need for an alternative when PIJ and Hamas websites faced disruption. Hezbollah Telegram channels have also shared the official propaganda of these groups and have not faced any disruption or other forms of moderation since we began monitoring them on October 7th.

Conclusion

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic jihad retain a stable online infrastructure centred on official websites, a network of Telegram channels, and the al-Qassam Brigades app. While the groups have faced disruption to their websites and the removal of key Telegram channels, the websites have remained relatively stable since late 2023, and new Telegram channels have emerged and remained unmoderated. Unlike the precedent set by other groups like the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and al-Shabaab, Hamas and the PIJ have not been forced to change their methods of propaganda dissemination.