Former US public diplomacy officials fear the sophisticated, social media borne propaganda of the Islamic State militant group (Isis) is outmatching American efforts at countering it.  Aimed less at Isis itself than at potential supporters, a bevy of US diplomatic and communications initiatives seek to undermine Isis’s portrayal of itself as an authentic, successful Islamic resistance.

Social media has changed the political campaign and discourse in India like never before, agreed a panel discussing the learnings from the Lok Sabha elections and the last two US elections as part of the Social Media Week Mumbai on Monday. 

As the Islamic State group battles across Syria and Iraq, pushing back larger armies and ruling over entire cities, it is also waging an increasingly sophisticated media campaign that has rallied disenfranchised youth and outpaced the sluggish efforts of Arab governments to stem its appeal.

Kenya is set to use social media to promote its tourism industry that is currently on its knees due to security challenges posed by terrorist attacks. The East African nation will in the next months start using Facebook, Twitter, blogs and Instagram to reach out to potential tourists across the world in new and traditional source markets. 

A user's recent social media posts read like a movie: A woman trained as a doctor travels to a war zone. She falls in love and gets pregnant. She suffers the inevitable reality of war in Syria.  The social media user posts on Twitter and Facebook links to a Tumbler blog titled "Diary Of A Traveler". 

The world’s foremost experts and influencers of social media from across the globe — including politicians, diplomats and authors — will gather in Mumbai for the country’s third and the city’s second edition of the Social Media Week (SMW 2014). To be held between September 22 and 26, the theme this year will be ‘Social Media for Social Change’.

We see indicators Islamic State trying to establish presence in South Asia.  Jihadist social media sites have begun promoting Islamic State messages over those of al-Qaida and its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to a report by the IHS global market information and analytics company.

The fundamentalist militant group ISIS has capitalized on the power of social media to spread its message and recruit new followers, but social networks and governments are fighting back. On Thursday, VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, announced it will ban accounts affiliated with the ISIS terrorist group.