In recent decades, Salafi-Jihadi groups have capitalised on the proliferation of social media to establish a persistent online presence. In that time, their activity has evolved into the so-called Multiplatform Communication Paradigm (MCP), a strategy to establish a presence on multiple online platforms instead of focusing on a single platform. Previous research has examined the digital ecosystem through outlinks from social media platforms such as Twitter and Telegram. On these platforms, Salafi-Jihadis face disruption and account removal. As distribution methods evolve to avoid detection, data collection is often based on availability at a given time. In contrast, this research is the first to present a longitudinal study, spanning almost six years of outline sharing from a Salafi-Jihadi digital safe haven, the IS Rocket.Chat server. Here, IS supporters are free to operate without removal, and thus, the research provides valuable insight into how the ecosystem operates when it is not facing disruption. The research provides an initial overview of the outlink data and demonstrates the continued importance of platforms fulfilling the roles of beacons, aggregators, and content stores within the digital ecosystem. It also emphasises the role of human choices in domain selection, as not all rooms share the same combinations of URL. This suggests a vital new, human-centred avenue for research into terrorist exploitation of the internet.
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