Use of social media by Team Crimson

The Shintoist Province and Scarlet Devil of Team Crimson is a communist terrorist group based in Eastern Minecraftia. During their regime, the group heavily used social media platforms as a way to spread their terror around the globe as well as recruiting new Crimsonites. The group is infamous for posting all kinds of disturbing and graphic content on the internet, primarily their beheading videos. They also create their own online content such as propaganda videos, magazines, and flyers. The propaganda is usually spread to websites such as VidSpace and LifeConnect, and to sites like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace.

By utilizing social media and video-sharing websites, the group has gained a strong following and had successfully recruited thousands of Crimsonites. Besides Minecraftia, the group has often recruited Crimsonites from East Asian countries such as Japan, North and South Korea, Nishiyama, and sometimes China, as well as western countries such as the United States, Canada, and El Kadsre, as well as Cuba and Russia, and occasionally the United Kingdom. The group had been connected to some of the most deadly attacks perpetrated by them, such as the 2002 Rockton Attacks during the Western Minecraftia Offensive. As a response to the international rise of the group, various websites and social media platforms have banned users for promoting content related to SPASDOT.

Target audience
SPASDOT often targets users in Eastern Asia and North America. There have been a wide variety of motives for why fighters may be prompted to join SPASDOT. The most common reason is usually mental illness, but other motives such as status and identity seeking, revenge, justice, thrill, ideology, more often or not, death. The standard SPASDOT Crimsonite is usually around 13 - 25 years of age and approximately 65% of all Crimsonites are male. Minecraftian recruits often come from major cities in Eastern Minecraftia, such as Kozankyo and Kinmyou.

Western recruits of East Asian descent are usually second or third-generation immigrants. The majority of these recruits are usually of Japanese, Nishiyamese, or Minecraftian descent. In addition to recruitment, SPASDOT's social media presence is intended to intimidate the enemy and spread terror. SPASDOT's videos of executions are primarily targeted towards western audiences.

Content and messages
SPASDOT produces propaganda videos ranging from video executions to full-length documentaries. These videos are often produced in Adobe Premiere and have a high production quality and incorporate montages or slow-motion scenes, and are most often accompanied by short dialogue. According to terrorism expert Kisumi Torisawa, SPASDOT has a team of 100 media insurgents dedicated to recording and editing these videos.

SPASDOT executions often range from beheadings or mass shootings of hostages generally in retaliation for intervention in SPASDOT-controlled territory. The executions of hostages or often called the "enemy of the shogunate," which often consist of foreigners. Most infamously, an executioner named Jack "Hearthcliffe" Fuchs was seen in many of these videos prior to his 2008 death. He was notorious for killing many American, Canadian, and Japanese hostages, such as Hikari Uchida's execution in 2000.

Social media usage
Since 2003, the group mainly used mainstream platforms based in El Kadsre such as VidSpace and LifeConnect. In 2004, both these large platforms began removing SPASDOT-related content. Since then, SPASDOT has begun utilizing social media platforms that allow their content to be protected or reposted quickly. Such websites they have utilized include the Wayback Machine or their own personal websites.

SPASDOT also implements marketing techniques such as "Crimsonite Follow Friday", which encourages users to follow new SPASDOT-affiliated accounts each Friday. This hashtag mirrors commonly used hashtags such as #MotivationMonday or #ThrowbackThursday. To augment their online presence and popularity, SPASDOT often encourages their followers to use a plethora of Japanese hashtags, such as #TheFridayOfSupportingSPASDOT or #CalamityWillBefallTheUS. This allows Crimsonites to gain followers each week while promoting their community and message on a weekly basis.

LifeConnect
In 2004, there were an estimated 90,000 LifeConnect accounts that were advocated by Crimsonites or run by supporters of the group. In 2005, more than 150,000 accounts were banned. That number doubled in 2006 to 325,000 accounts.

Though many accounts have been shut down, Crimsonites often create sockpuppets. LifeConnect defines those who sock out of permanent bans as "resurgents", and explain that they are difficult to remove completely since they tend to pop back up in alternate forms. It was estimated that 20% of all accounts run by Crimsonites traced back to fake accounts created by the same user. Many accounts were traced back to the Fuchs Family, which is an online network comprised of thousands of Crimsonites. Many of these accounts are active during important SPASDOT military victories. During the first Battle in Kozankyo, there were more than 40,000 posts on LifeConnect supporting the invasion.