Engaging english speaking facebook users in an anti-ISIS awareness campaign

Abstract

This article reports on The International Center for Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE's) small-scale Facebook ad awareness campaigns ran between December 7, 2017 and December 31, 2017 in the United States, UK, Canada, and Australia. Two ICSVE-produced videos were used, namely The Promises of ad-Dawlah to Women, featuring the testimony of a Belgian female ISIS defector, and Today is the Female Slave Market in ad-Dawlah, featuring a Syrian male ISIS defector who witnessed the sexual enslavement of women by ISIS. The purpose of the campaign was to reach as many English-speaking individuals in U.S., UK, Canada, and Australia to drive engagement with the ICSVE-produced videos as well raise awareness about the dangers of joining or considering joining a violent extremist group like ISIS. The ad generated a reach of over 1 million and almost 604K video views. In addition to important engagement and awareness metrics, the qualitative impact analysis of generated comments was promising in terms of initiating important discussions on the dangers emanating from violent extremist groups like ISIS.