Censorship is a tool. The goal was to prevent Daesh / ISIS from recruiting Americans into dying for their cause in Syria / Iraq.
The number of US citizens flying out to die in a forsaken war on ISIS's side are miniscule to none. Believe it or not, American citizens were doing this back when the surge was happening.
We successfully disrupted their information campaign and their recruitment. And ISIS / ISIL / Daesh is now fighting for relevance (albeit unsuccessfully, mainly on GETTR).
They never needed American recruits. This is a sideshow. There are many millions of non-Americans in the world to recruit from, and many non-internet ways to do it.
ISIL didn't exist a few years ago. They only came into existence thanks to foreign recruits.
Americans included of course. But there are recruits from all around the world. Disrupting that recruitment process is one of the shining examples of effective cyber warfare vs ISIL / daesh.
Non-Americans use Facebook, YouTube, and other websites in large numbers.
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ISIL is still trying to recruit from the US websites. We just censor the crap out of them so they make no progress. It's in fact, proof that censorship works in practice.
The number of US citizens flying out to die in a forsaken war on ISIS's side are miniscule to none. Believe it or not, American citizens were doing this back when the surge was happening.
We successfully disrupted their information campaign and their recruitment. And ISIS / ISIL / Daesh is now fighting for relevance (albeit unsuccessfully, mainly on GETTR).