9 ms·

France ditches the name ISIS, replacing it with a label the group hates

74 points by dreamweapon 12y ago

dreamweapon 12y ago
I'm posting this on HN because what the French media are doing (according to the article) amounts to something of an elegant SEO hack: if we all stopped calling them by their wannabe 'Islamic State' moniker, and uniformly started using the Daeshi label instead, that would tend to force the search rankings on their their various propaganda videos/websites down -- or force them to start using it if they want their rankings to come back up. Side note: Title abbreviated slightly to fit the 80-char limit.
- metafex 12y ago
  Make them the laughing stock of the world and nobody will take them serious anymore. As bad as the things they do are, it can't get anymore classy for a countermeasure. No war on whatever really helps the people, but this hopefully opens some eyes.
- zethraeus 12y ago
  It's (positive) propaganda, and propaganda is effectively a social hack. A part of the social hack is its technical impact , but it's interesting independent of it. (And I'd love to see more analysis of the impact and stickiness of the hack). Thanks for posting it.
- AJ007 12y ago
  Is it propaganda or is it a honeypot?
  - darkstar999 12y ago
    Honeypot? How so? See who gets pissed off when you call them that?
- zo1 12y ago
  If anyone wants to jump on the band wagon for this new name, here is a start: https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+daesh https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+daesh or https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+new+name+daesh https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+new+name+daesh And perhaps the french could convince anonymous or 4chan to help out.
andrewtbham 12y ago
I believe strongly in renaming things as an effective marketing and positioning technique. Rebranding the inheritance tax as the death tax is a good example. Does anyone have any other examples?
- eru 12y ago
  Good example in which direction?
  - andrewtbham 12y ago
    I think it's effective rebranding for those wanting to repeal the tax. Fyi, I'm more interested in the marketing, than the politics. So an example of the ineffective branding, from the book "positioning: the battle for your mind", is high fructose corn syrup. They suggested rebranding it to "corn sugar."
    - zo1 12y ago
      "Fyi, I'm more interested in the marketing, than the politics." Well, depending on who you ask, those two are the same. Politicians market themselves, their ideas, and their favoritism to their audience. They want you to "buy" more of what they have to offer, as opposed to you "buying" their competitors. Now, whether they do it for a noble or greedy cause is open to debate. However, not one either side is likely to win in any sort of reasonable time frame.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  During the Obamacare debate in Congress, the administration was very careful to always refer to the individual mandate penalty as a "fee" or "penalty", never ever a "tax." But when the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate, they did so under the government's power to tax.
- conradfr 12y ago
  Not sure as "good example" but in France there is a major effort to rebrand "video surveillance" (CCTV) as "video protection". Also labeling anti-Zionism as antisemitism or hiding an antisemitic rhetoric by claiming it's only anti-Zionism is quite common.
carlob 12y ago
This is exactly the contrary of what Berlusconi once proposed: "let's brand all Fiat cars as Ferrari and their sales will soar".
herge 12y ago
Also, Daesh is a homophone with a french slang word for semen.
- KevinBongart 12y ago
  No, it isn't.
  - surement 12y ago
    It is where I come from.
falsestprophet 12y ago
"Daesh" is short for "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham", which means Islamic State(or Nation) of Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant or Syria)... so basically ISIS. [1] So then, the point of view here is that you're not referring to it as a state when you use words from a non-Western European language? I think it would be better to spin it as an armed group serving it's dictatorial leader, the "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by calling it something like "Al-Baghdadi's Army." Much better to leave Islam, Iraq and Syria out of it. Then you have at least one clear, achievable goal: http://imgur.com/UcIhJmU http://imgur.com/UcIhJmU [1] http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-the-origin-of-the-name-daesh-the-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-as-sham/ http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-the-ori...
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  Are they not doing all the things they're doing for Islam's sake (misguided or not)?
  - falsestprophet 12y ago
    Yeah, I would take their word for it that they are Muslims. But in addition to being Muslims and generally really bad dudes, the principal thing they are doing is installing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the leader of a caliphate/country.
  - cjslep 12y ago
    Al-Qaeda will publicly try to justify their actions using religious beliefs, ISIS does not try nearly as hard. I do not know if other Muslims consider ISIS "Takfir"[0] though. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Muslimin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Muslimin ...in the Muslim world Takfir is "generally used as a derogatory description for extremists that kill Muslims without sufficient religious justification".
    - deleted 12y ago
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lordlarm 12y ago
What does the actual word "Daesh" mean and why do they hate it?
- darkstar999 12y ago
  Did you read the article? That would be a good start.
- thinkpad20 12y ago
  The article explains that, but in your defense, it takes quite a while to do that. It first mentions the word, and then doesn't explain its meaning or significance until another five paragraphs have gone by. This was a poor choice by the author, in my opinion.
colanderman 12y ago
The same strategy gave us the term "Nazi", according to Mark Forsyth: "[Nazi] was a derogatory term for a backwards peasant – being a shortened version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria, the area from which the Nazis emerged. Opponents seized on this and shortened the party's title Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, to the dismissive "Nazi"."
- eru 12y ago
  You are sure it's not a play on the long established "Sozi" for Sozialdemokrat? EDIT: I just checked. It's both. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Begriffsgeschichte_und_-verwendung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Begriffsgeschichte_und_-v...
deleted 12y ago
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takeda 12y ago
What about just calling them Softcard?
deleted 12y ago
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genieyclo 12y ago
A common refrain you read online lately is that ISIS is not Islamic, usually by moderate Muslim apologists. The awkward truth however is that actually moderate Muslims are really the unIslamic ones, and that ISIS is Islamic to a fault. ISIS follows a very literalist and precise interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and tradition, whereas moderate Muslims trying to distance themselves from ISIS are much more lax in this regard. So Obama or the French government saying ISIS is not Islamic sounds pretty silly and requires some serious cognitive dissonance on the part of all involved in this charade. The fact of the matter is the Islamic State is just that: Islamic. Muslims who play this doublethink game are finding it harder and harder to keep all the contradictions in what their religion teaches and the values they hold aligned.
- IB885588 12y ago
  Yes, the excuse reminds me of the (very apropos today) No True Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "I am Scottish, and I put sugar on my porridge." Person A: "Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
  - zo1 12y ago
    I'm curious... Do the Scottish have a book that states whether or not a Scotsman should eat porridge? Because if it does, and it's a book they follow for their Scottish belief system, then that throws a spanner in the whole comparison.
- sneaky_ruds 12y ago
  As a point of comparison, how do you feel about comments that Westboro Baptist Church is un-Christian?
  - genieyclo 12y ago
    I don't have any past experience as a Christian or know enough about Christianity to comment about that.
vernie 12y ago
...and you won't believe what happens next!
tencor 12y ago
Islamic terrorists and sympathizers are the scum of the Universe. Cancerous vermins that need to be wiped out.
Meczch 12y ago
I'm all in favor of this move...give them what they deserve
Meczch 12y ago
I'm all for this renaming!! Give them what they deserve

74 points by dreamweapon 12y ago

I'm posting this on HN because what the French media are doing (according to the article) amounts to something of an elegant SEO hack: if we all stopped calling them by their wannabe 'Islamic State' moniker, and uniformly started using the Daeshi label instead, that would tend to force the search rankings on their their various propaganda videos/websites down -- or force them to start using it if they want their rankings to come back up. Side note: Title abbreviated slightly to fit the 80-char limit.

metafex 12y ago
Make them the laughing stock of the world and nobody will take them serious anymore. As bad as the things they do are, it can't get anymore classy for a countermeasure. No war on whatever really helps the people, but this hopefully opens some eyes.
zethraeus 12y ago
It's (positive) propaganda, and propaganda is effectively a social hack. A part of the social hack is its technical impact , but it's interesting independent of it. (And I'd love to see more analysis of the impact and stickiness of the hack). Thanks for posting it.
AJ007 12y ago
Is it propaganda or is it a honeypot?
- darkstar999 12y ago
  Honeypot? How so? See who gets pissed off when you call them that?
zo1 12y ago
If anyone wants to jump on the band wagon for this new name, here is a start: https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+daesh https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+daesh or https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+new+name+daesh https://www.google.com/search?q=isis+new+name+daesh And perhaps the french could convince anonymous or 4chan to help out.

andrewtbham 12y ago

I believe strongly in renaming things as an effective marketing and positioning technique. Rebranding the inheritance tax as the death tax is a good example. Does anyone have any other examples?

eru 12y ago
Good example in which direction?
- andrewtbham 12y ago
  I think it's effective rebranding for those wanting to repeal the tax. Fyi, I'm more interested in the marketing, than the politics. So an example of the ineffective branding, from the book "positioning: the battle for your mind", is high fructose corn syrup. They suggested rebranding it to "corn sugar."
  - zo1 12y ago
    "Fyi, I'm more interested in the marketing, than the politics." Well, depending on who you ask, those two are the same. Politicians market themselves, their ideas, and their favoritism to their audience. They want you to "buy" more of what they have to offer, as opposed to you "buying" their competitors. Now, whether they do it for a noble or greedy cause is open to debate. However, not one either side is likely to win in any sort of reasonable time frame.
snowwrestler 12y ago
During the Obamacare debate in Congress, the administration was very careful to always refer to the individual mandate penalty as a "fee" or "penalty", never ever a "tax." But when the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate, they did so under the government's power to tax.
conradfr 12y ago
Not sure as "good example" but in France there is a major effort to rebrand "video surveillance" (CCTV) as "video protection". Also labeling anti-Zionism as antisemitism or hiding an antisemitic rhetoric by claiming it's only anti-Zionism is quite common.

carlob 12y ago

This is exactly the contrary of what Berlusconi once proposed: "let's brand all Fiat cars as Ferrari and their sales will soar".

herge 12y ago

Also, Daesh is a homophone with a french slang word for semen.

KevinBongart 12y ago
No, it isn't.
- surement 12y ago
  It is where I come from.

falsestprophet 12y ago

"Daesh" is short for "al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham", which means Islamic State(or Nation) of Iraq and al-Sham (the Levant or Syria)... so basically ISIS. [1] So then, the point of view here is that you're not referring to it as a state when you use words from a non-Western European language? I think it would be better to spin it as an armed group serving it's dictatorial leader, the "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, by calling it something like "Al-Baghdadi's Army." Much better to leave Islam, Iraq and Syria out of it. Then you have at least one clear, achievable goal: http://imgur.com/UcIhJmU http://imgur.com/UcIhJmU [1] http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-the-origin-of-the-name-daesh-the-islamic-state-in-iraq-and-as-sham/ http://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/on-the-ori...

sergiotapia 12y ago
Are they not doing all the things they're doing for Islam's sake (misguided or not)?
- falsestprophet 12y ago
  Yeah, I would take their word for it that they are Muslims. But in addition to being Muslims and generally really bad dudes, the principal thing they are doing is installing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the leader of a caliphate/country.
- cjslep 12y ago
  Al-Qaeda will publicly try to justify their actions using religious beliefs, ISIS does not try nearly as hard. I do not know if other Muslims consider ISIS "Takfir"[0] though. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Muslimin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jama%27at_al-Muslimin ...in the Muslim world Takfir is "generally used as a derogatory description for extremists that kill Muslims without sufficient religious justification".
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

deleted 12y ago

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lordlarm 12y ago

What does the actual word "Daesh" mean and why do they hate it?

darkstar999 12y ago
Did you read the article? That would be a good start.
thinkpad20 12y ago
The article explains that, but in your defense, it takes quite a while to do that. It first mentions the word, and then doesn't explain its meaning or significance until another five paragraphs have gone by. This was a poor choice by the author, in my opinion.

colanderman 12y ago

The same strategy gave us the term "Nazi", according to Mark Forsyth: "[Nazi] was a derogatory term for a backwards peasant – being a shortened version of Ignatius, a common name in Bavaria, the area from which the Nazis emerged. Opponents seized on this and shortened the party's title Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, to the dismissive "Nazi"."

eru 12y ago
You are sure it's not a play on the long established "Sozi" for Sozialdemokrat? EDIT: I just checked. It's both. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Begriffsgeschichte_und_-verwendung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi#Begriffsgeschichte_und_-v...

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

takeda 12y ago

What about just calling them Softcard?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

genieyclo 12y ago

A common refrain you read online lately is that ISIS is not Islamic, usually by moderate Muslim apologists. The awkward truth however is that actually moderate Muslims are really the unIslamic ones, and that ISIS is Islamic to a fault. ISIS follows a very literalist and precise interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and tradition, whereas moderate Muslims trying to distance themselves from ISIS are much more lax in this regard. So Obama or the French government saying ISIS is not Islamic sounds pretty silly and requires some serious cognitive dissonance on the part of all involved in this charade. The fact of the matter is the Islamic State is just that: Islamic. Muslims who play this doublethink game are finding it harder and harder to keep all the contradictions in what their religion teaches and the values they hold aligned.

IB885588 12y ago
Yes, the excuse reminds me of the (very apropos today) No True Scotsman fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "I am Scottish, and I put sugar on my porridge." Person A: "Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
- zo1 12y ago
  I'm curious... Do the Scottish have a book that states whether or not a Scotsman should eat porridge? Because if it does, and it's a book they follow for their Scottish belief system, then that throws a spanner in the whole comparison.
sneaky_ruds 12y ago
As a point of comparison, how do you feel about comments that Westboro Baptist Church is un-Christian?
- genieyclo 12y ago
  I don't have any past experience as a Christian or know enough about Christianity to comment about that.

vernie 12y ago

...and you won't believe what happens next!

tencor 12y ago

Islamic terrorists and sympathizers are the scum of the Universe. Cancerous vermins that need to be wiped out.

Meczch 12y ago

I'm all in favor of this move...give them what they deserve

Meczch 12y ago

I'm all for this renaming!! Give them what they deserve