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Young supporters of Islamic terror groups like ISIS and al-Qaida are using generative AI tools to create fan edits, cartoons, and memes, according to a new report from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, as part of a trend the report calls “Slop Jihad.”

This shift “signals a fundamental transformation in the aesthetics of jihadist propaganda online,” concludes the report, which was shared exclusively with WIRED.

“The principal concern is the growing volume and diversity of material,” says Adam Hadley, executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, a UN-backed counter terrorism organization that has also written a report about the Slop Jihad trend. www.wired.com/story/gen-ai...

Moustafa Ayad, the research chair in global Islamism and counter terrorism at ISD, said the vast majority of the videos were found on TikTok. In total, he found 150 Slop Jihad videos from 71 accounts with more than 5.4 million total views on the platform.

Ayad believes this is down to TikTok's For You Page algorithm “that is hyper-targeted to user interests,” together with the high level of general AI slop and “an existing entrenched ecosystem of jihadist support on the platform.”

TikTok contested the findings of the report. Dozens of the videos identified in the report were deleted after WIRED shared them with the platform.