Digital Terror Crimes

Cody Corliss*

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians.  These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading extreme fear among the civilian population.  The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article argues that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms.  It situates digital terror crimes within the existing jurisprudence on terror at ad hoc international and hybrid criminal tribunals.  Terror is an autonomous war crime within international criminal law, but all previous convictions for terror have always been predicated upon another underlying criminal act.  Digital terror crimes are different: The underlying act of social media use is not necessarily a war crime outside the crime of terror.  This article explains terror in the digital context, examines the ways that digital terror crimes can be committed in armed conflict, and considers the various actors who could be implicated in the perpetration and distribution of digital terror.

* Associate Professor, West Virginia University College of Law. A.B., Harvard University; M.A., Universiteit Leiden; J.D., Cornell Law School.  Before joining the legal academy, the author spent seven years as a prosecutor at two United Nations international criminal tribunals, the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  The views expressed herein are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views of any ad hoc tribunal or the United Nations in general.  This article benefitted from helpful conversations and comments from Valarie Blake, Alison Peck, Rebecca Hamilton, Michael Scharf, Stuart Ford, Jim Friedberg, Steve Koh, Brian Richardson, Christine Abely, Stephen Cody, Guillermo Garcia Sanchez, Amy Cyphert, Jena Martin, Dale Olson, John Taylor, Kirsha Trychta, Elaine Waterhouse Wilson, and participants at works-in-progress talks at American University Washington College of Law and the 2023 Junior International Law Scholars Association annual meeting.  The Journal’s editors, including Brian Japari, Margaret Jewett, Zachary Lemonides, Allyson Ping, and Iben Vagle, asked important clarifying questions and provided excellent editing support. The Arthur B. Hodges Research Fund provided research support.  All errors, of course, are the author’s errors alone.