The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook

The report provides a case study of the Fuouaris Upload network, a pro-ISIS ecosystem on Facebook that used account hijacking, content masking, and coordinated 'raids' to spread propaganda. Between April 7 and July 3, 2020, researchers tracked 288 accounts, finding that a core group of 90 was controlled by a single user, Luqmen Ben Tachafin. The network expanded to SoundCloud and utilized multilingual communities (including Indonesian, Somali, and Albanian) to bypass moderation. The report highlights the use of COVID-19 narratives to celebrate death tolls and the exploitation of virtual phone number apps to hijack accounts, arguing that Facebook's reliance on AI and hashing is insufficient without 'street level' understanding of extremist tactics.

• Between April 7 and July 3, 2020, ISD tracked 288 pro-ISIS accounts, with a core of 90 accounts controlled by one individual named Luqmen Ben Tachafin. By May 21, this network had shared 50 videos that garnered over 34,000 views.
• The network employed 'content masking' to bypass Facebook's automated hashing technology, such as adding non-extremist introductions (e.g., Quranic recitals or mainstream documentary clips) and overlaying symbols to hide official ISIS logos.
• ISIS supporters used virtual phone number applications from the US and Canada to hijack existing Facebook accounts by intercepting password reset text messages.
• The network coordinated 'raids' on high-profile Facebook pages, including the US Department of Defence, the US Army, and the US Air Force Academy, flooding comment sections with terrorist imagery and threats.
• The network exploited the COVID-19 pandemic by creating pages that celebrated the virus as a 'soldier of God' and highlighted death tolls in countries part of the Global Coalition against Daesh.
• Multilingual communities in Indonesian, Somali, Ethiopian, and Albanian languages were found to be less heavily moderated than Arabic accounts, with some sharing explicit bomb-making tutorials.
• The network operated across multiple platforms, using Facebook to signpost users to ISIS content on SoundCloud, Telegram, WhatsApp, and standalone websites like 'The Punishment'.
• Despite the removal of 70 percent of the Fuouaris Upload accounts during the monitoring period, the network showed resilience through the use of 'placeholder' and 'war spoils' (hijacked) accounts.

APA

Ayad, M. (2020). The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Propaganda-Pipeline-1.pdf

Chicago

Ayad, Moustafa. The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2020. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Propaganda-Pipeline-1.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ayad |first1=Moustafa |title=The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=13 July 2020 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Propaganda-Pipeline-1.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ayad2020propaganda, author = {Ayad, Moustafa}, title = {{The Propaganda Pipeline: The ISIS Fuouaris Upload Network on Facebook}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2020}, month = jul, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-Propaganda-Pipeline-1.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }