IMPACT Program's Crowdfunding Allows Anyone to Fight ISIS Propaganda
Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) December 09, 2014 -- The IMPACT Program announced the addition of a crowdfunding page designed to facilitate online contributions from individual backers in amounts ranging from $10 to $1,000. The program, which counters and confronts radical, violent Islamic propaganda online, has been hailed as an innovative approach to confronting the kind of online propaganda that has become a hallmark for Islamic extremist groups like Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. “We constantly receive inquiries and interest from concerned citizens about how they can best support one or more of our projects,” said Mark Duncan a spokesman for the IMPACT Program. “Crowdfunding is a win-win as it allows anybody to get involved and feel good about doing something tangible to counter and confront ISIS online. And the success of our program ultimately comes down to financial resources because there is a direct cost with getting our message across on the Internet. In order to scale the program to match the success of the terrorists there is a growing funding requirement,” says Duncan.
A Growing Problem
The Internet and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are increasingly exploited by violent Islamic extremists in recent years. “The ideology of groups like ISIS must be contained, confronted and ultimately defeated on the Internet because this is the cornerstone of their external communication strategy. With these horrific videos they create and post, the Internet becomes a direct path to controlling the global media cycle. When ISIS controls the media cycle their message echoes everywhere,” says Duncan. “We are compelled to act now. Although the U.S. military has been combating ISIS with airstrikes the efforts to combat them with information has been woefully inadequate."
Compelled To Act
The IMPACT Program was started by a small group communications experts with experience working throughout the Middle East. “We’ve seen first-hand the rise of ISIS and how their sophisticated media apparatus has accelerated that rise,” says one of IMPACT’s founders who preferred that his name not be published for security reasons. “We believe that groups like ISIS are decisively winning the information war on the Internet. We need to turn that tide with programs like IMPACT and the crowdfunding platform will allow for grass-roots engagement.”
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To learn more visit https://impact.tilt.com
Media Team, IMPACT Program, http://impact.tilt.com, +1 (202) 601-0509, [email protected]
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