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ISIS is using a Justin Bieber hashtag to spread disturbing propaganda

Not cool, ISIS.

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Dell Cameron

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If you love to check out Justin Bieber news online—and who doesn’t?—you’re in for a rude awakening.

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Bieber and his 74 million Twitter followers likely won’t be too stoked to learn that Islamic State extremists have adopted the #JustinBieber hashtag in an effort to circulate their latest propaganda film.

Shared by an ISIS media account, a graphic execution video hit Twitter this week bearing the hashtags #ISIS, #ISIL, and #JustinBieber. The inclusion of the Bieber hashtag is glaringly out of place, but seems to simply be an effort to expose the West to the group’s gruesome propaganda.

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The ISIS video, which features the brutal executions of four men, is intended to serve as a call for new recruits. It also depicts what is presumably an ISIS fighter carrying out a suicide bombing in an explosive-filled vehicle.

It seems ISIS’s attempts to hijack Bieber’s fandom has had relatively minimal results, at least in terms of usage. A search through the #JustinBieber hashtag on Twitter uncovers few posts linked to the terrorist group, and a whole lot of this:

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H/T News.au| Illustration by Max Fleishman

 
The Daily Dot