Terrorist organizations’ use of the Internet to spread extremist ideas and recruit people has become a major challenge facing the security field today. The following are some of their common strategies and methods: 1. **Social media platforms**: - **Creating and maintaining accounts**: Terrorist organizations set up official accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to publish propaganda content, motivational statements, and recruitment information. - **Exploiting virality**: Expanding the scope of influence by publishing eye-catching images, videos, and stories to attract users to forward and share. - **Interaction and motivation**: Enhance participation and encourage potential members to identify with the Internet by interacting with users, such as responding to comments, hosting online events or challenges. 2. **Encrypted communication tools**: - **Using anonymous and encrypted communication applications**: Such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, etc., to ensure the privacy of communication and prevent monitoring by law enforcement agencies. - **Establishing secret groups**: Create closed or semi-open groups on encrypted platforms for planning, training, and recruitment. 3. **Online forums and discussion areas**: - **Exploiting underground forums**: Posting recruitment information, propaganda materials, and training resources on the dark web or specific extremist forums. - **Leading discussions**: Instilling extreme ideas and inflaming users’ emotions and discontent by sparking discussions on political, religious and social issues. 4. **Promotional videos and multimedia content**: - **Making high-quality videos**: Publish motivational promotional videos, speech videos, combat training videos, etc. to demonstrate the organization’s strength and goals and attract potential members. - **Using live broadcast platforms**: Conduct real-time interactions through live broadcast events to enhance audience participation and loyalty. 5. **Customized content and targeting**: - **Analyzing the audience**: Use big data and artificial intelligence technology to analyze the interests, habits and psychological state of potential audiences and develop targeted promotional strategies. - **Language and cultural adaptation**: Adjust the language and style of promotional content according to different regions and cultural backgrounds to improve resonance. 6. **Using online resources and tools**: - **Search engine optimization (SEO)**: Improve the ranking of promotional content in search engines and increase exposure by optimizing keywords. - **Using multi-platform cross-communication**: Publish content simultaneously on multiple platforms to form a linkage effect and expand the scope of influence. 7. **Virtual communities and games**: - **Establish virtual communities**: Create virtual communities through online games, virtual reality platforms, etc., attract young users, conduct ideological infiltration and recruitment. - **Use in-game ads and tasks**: Embed propaganda elements in games, such as task guides and ad placement, to subtly spread extreme ideas. 8. **Use celebrity effects and opinion leaders**: - **Cooperation and sponsorship**: Cooperate with influential online figures, bloggers or opinion leaders to spread the organization's ideas through their influence. - **Shape the image of a leader**: Create a charismatic leader image and attract followers through personal charm. 9. **Exploit network loopholes and anonymity**: - **Avoid regulation**: Hide identity and location through tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and Tor to evade monitoring by law enforcement agencies. - **Exploit platform loopholes**: Discover and exploit loopholes in social media platforms to publish content to avoid being quickly deleted or banned. 10. **Psychological warfare and manipulation**: - **Incitement**: Spread hate speech, create fear and anxiety, stimulate users' emotional reactions, and encourage them to accept extreme ideas. - **Provide a sense of belonging**: Through online interaction and community building, potential members can feel a sense of belonging and identity, and enhance their motivation to join the organization. **Countermeasures**: In order to deal with the propaganda and recruitment of terrorist organizations on the Internet, the government, enterprises and all sectors of society need to work together, such as strengthening network monitoring and intelligence analysis, formulating and enforcing relevant laws and regulations, educating the public to improve cybersecurity awareness, and supporting community projects against extremism. A comprehensive understanding of how terrorist organizations operate on the Internet will help to formulate effective prevention and control strategies to reduce the spread of extreme ideas and the recruitment of potential members.