Even Jihadists Use Facebook Polls

As we mentioned in Wednesday's post, there was some prime social media mobilization going on this week when it came down to naming Friday's protests in Syria. 

Early afternoon on Wednesday, one choice was winning:

جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')

Now, one can interpret that name as they want. For example, maybe the name is referring to gulf countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who have aided the Free Syrian Army. Maybe it is a gesture to the conscious of the Muslim world in an effort to mobilize Muslims to action. 

We have discovered that among at least some Salafi-Jihadist types (i.e. supporters of Jibhat An-Nusra) that name held a different meaning. The name meant that Syrians would be protesting in support of militant, Islamic action against the regime. Proof of that can be found on Hanein, where one user started a thread begging people to vote for the "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria" option:

كما تعلمون بأن تسمية الجمعة لها أثر نفسي كبير وصدى إعلامي واسع في خضم الأحداث الجسام التي نمر بهاوبعد أن كانت الفرق كبير بنسبة الاصوات إلى تسمية جيوش الإسلام اغيثوا الشام بدأ جمع بني علمان يحاولون أن يحرفوا البوصلة ليجروا الجمعة من بعدها الإسلاميفالرجاء ممن له حساب على الفيس بوك الدخول والتصويت لصالح التسمية الإسلامية

Translation:

["As you know, the naming of Fridays has a lot of influence and a big media echo because of the magnitude of the events that experiencing. There used to be a wide gap in the number of votes given to "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria," but now the 'secularists' have started to get together and try to pervert the results to steal away the Islamic dimension of Friday. So please, to whoever has a Facebook account, go on and vote for the Islamic name."]

The guy's avatar:

- Another user replies "Thanks, I just voted"

- The author replies "Thanks for voting, I hope the other brothers will vote too, it's between two competing names, one Islamic and one secular. Voting closes in three hours."

-A 3rd user replies "Victory to the Armies of Islam. I just voted, God bless you."

-The author replies "May God give you life. The amount of users on this forum (if they all voted) could create a wide gap between the two. So don't give up on it brothers, and don't say the the name doesn't make any difference, because it does."

- A 4th user replies, stating that he voted as well. 

- The author thanks him, noting that "I'm waiting for the rest of the brothers to vote - the voting is getting close, we used to be winning by more than 2500 votes, and now it's less than 1300! It's important."

The stuff is happening in real time. About a half hour later, the author comes back: 

"The difference is less than 50 votes! Unfortunately, in half an hour the results will flip on us and Friday's protest will have some secular name!"

Then a few minutes later:

"It didn't even take half an hour. Now the secular name is winning. God help us. 

Posts on this thread: 9

Number of times the thread was viewed: 132

(i.e. look how many people read the thread, and only a few people posted to let us know they voted)

I'm sorry for all of my posts on the thread, but it gets to me that secularists are winning over Islam, even if it's just a Facebook victory. "

This guy is clearly disappointed. We are pretty happy though - what a great example of cross-platform social media mobilization...or, rather, attempted social media mobilization.