Jihadi media organizations are forming Facebook pages to bypass restrictions on terrorist organizations, and to pass on videos, pictures, and documents to followers. While Facebook bans inciting violence or hateful content, jihadi media groups slide underneath the restrictions because they are poorly known.

“Watch here live the battle yesterday at Mogadisho as the tanks of the kufaar [disbelievers] burn,” says a post on the new Facebook page of Al-Kataib Media Foundation, a division of the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab. The post also features a video of an al-Shabaab spokesman who “talks to the reporters at the front line of the jihad,” provides a link to download the clip, and encourages them to “share it with your brothers and sisters.”

Other posts on the Al-Kataib page glorify al-Shabaab’s campaign of suicide bombing, while ‘notes‘ provide detailed accounts of daily battles.

Alongside unofficial pages dedicated to terrorist organizations, al-Kataib’s page suggests that jihadi media can recruit and indoctrinate directly from the world’s largest social network. The media groups of al-Qaida and al-Shabaab have pages, while popular jihadi blog Ansar al-Mujahideen operates two closed discussion groups.

Facebook won accolades for its role in fueling peaceful, popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa known as the Arab Spring.

However, in the same way that social media has mobilized positive change in Arab nations, it has also given a boost to terrorist organizations. Hamas recently launched a new social media campaign, using Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube to lift its public profile.

Read More: http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011061113787/world/terrorism/jihadi-media-joins-facebook.html