Methods & Trends

Background:

• The Joint UFA and Middle East & North Africa FATF (MENAFATF) typologies report on Social Media and Terrorism Financing was initiated following the 2016 Joint UFA/MENAFATF Typologies workshop, which was held in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

• This report was co-led by Egypt and Malaysia.

• The report has been adopted at the UFA Plenary meeting (July 2018) held in Kathmandu/Nepal, and MENAFATF 28th Plenary meeting (November 2018) held in Beirut/Lebanon.

The importance of this report:

• The report provides an updated and more focused analysis on of techniques and trends, including indicators, associated with the abuse of social media services for financing acts of terrorism, individual terrorists or terrorist organisations.

• The report includes challenges in the detection, investigation and prosecution of TF through the abuse of social media services, and provides measures to assist competent authorities overcome these challenges.

• Social networking and content hosting services are primarily used to solicit donations, promote terrorism through propaganda and radicalisation. Consistent with the current limited integration of payment methods in these services, most cases provided as part of the report show donated funds are moved using traditional payment methods

• Internet communication services were used in many cases to privately communicate with campaigners or terrorist groups. The vulnerabilities of these services, for example, encrypted communication and the number of active users, are factors driving their abuse for TF.

• Crowdfunding services were used in a number of cases provided as part of the report, with campaigners often disguising the use of funds for humanitarian causes. These services often integrated traditional and new payment services, which due to their vulnerabilities may hinder TF detection and investigation by competent authorities.

• Key challenges in the detection, investigation and prosecution of TF through the abuse of social media services include:

  • The significant number of social media services, user accounts and overall amount of social media usage;

  • Tracing and Identifying Persons;

  • Analysis of Digital Forensic Evidence; and

  • Transnational Nature and Obtaining Evidence

*This report is also available in Arabic language and published on MENAFATF website:

http://menafatf.org/sites/default/files/Newsletter/FINAL-TM-SF.pdf