Anonymous says Twitter taking down their accounts for ‘harassing’ ISIS
March 7, 2016
Shah Sheikh (1294 articles)
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Anonymous says Twitter taking down their accounts for ‘harassing’ ISIS

Even as the fight against online terrorism is taking on Twitter and Facebook, the online hacktivist group, Anonymous has claimed that Twitter is shutting down their accounts which are finding and reporting ISIS linked accounts.

Anonymous claimed that in the bid to stop Islamic State (IS) from using its platform to spread its hate agenda and recruits new members, Twitter has been shutting down accounts of those who actually report terrorism.

The taking down saga began with the 125,000 accounts that Twitter banned for “threatening or promoting terrorist acts.  Anonymous claims that all these accounts could be banned because of their reporting. “You do realise if we all stopped reporting terrorist accounts and graphic images, Twitter would be flooded with terrorists,” WauchulaGhost, an Anonymous linked member tweeted.

According to one Anonymous member, who goes by the name WauchulaGhost, their account was briefly suspended without warning. “I never received an email from Twitter,” the hacktivist told The Epoch Times. Anonymous has been involved in a campaign called “Operation ISIS” (or OpISIS) for over a year, which is seeking to disrupt the communication of groups like ISIS online.

According to the Epoch Times report, several hackers’ accounts have been suspended, including some of the main #OpISIS accounts, with the handles being taken down one-by-one or in groups.

Anonymous had announced a worldwide campaign called #OpISIS to identify and report online terrorist activities. According to a latest study by the US-based Brookings Institution, IS supporters may be operating over 46,000 active Twitter accounts.

The report found that Twitter and Facebook are the two main platforms used by IS supporters to spread their propaganda.

Islamic State (IS) has recently issued a video that threatens Facebook and Twitter CEOs with dire consequences if the social media platforms keep taking down pro-IS accounts. The video posted by “Caliphate Army” and authenticated by Storyful, a news agency that verifies content online, has images of Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey riddled with bullet holes.

“To Mark and Jack, founders of Twitter and Facebook and to their Crusader government. You announce daily that you suspended many of your accounts, and to you we say: Is that all you can do? You are not in our league,” read a banner at the end of the video.

Source | TechWorm