London — Islamic State militants are developing their own social media platform to avoid security crackdowns on their communications and propaganda, according to the head of the EU’s police agency. Europol director Rob Wainwright said on Wednesday that the new online platform had been uncovered during a 48-hour operation against internet extremism last week. "Within that operation, it was revealed [Islamic State] was now developing its very own social media platform, its own part of the internet to run its agenda," Wainwright told a security conference in London. "It does show that some members of Daesh [Islamic State], at least, continue to innovate." In a crackdown on Islamic State and al-Qaeda material, more than 2,000 extremist items were identified, hosted on 52 social media platforms. The crackdown was co-ordinated by Europol and involved officials from the US, Belgium, Greece, Poland and Portugal. Jihadists have often relied on mainstream social media platforms for online com...

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