  Using a dataset of over 1.9 million messages posted on Twitter by about
25,000 ISIS members, we explore how ISIS makes use of social media to spread
its propaganda and to recruit militants from the Arab world and across the
globe. By distinguishing between violence-driven, theological, and sectarian
content, we trace the connection between online rhetoric and key events on the
ground. To the best of our knowledge, ours is one of the first studies to focus
on Arabic content, while most literature focuses on English content. Our
findings yield new important insights about how social media is used by radical
militant groups to target the Arab-speaking world, and reveal important
patterns in their propaganda efforts.
