At the same time the terrorist group that calls itself Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), also known as ISIL, surprised the world by releasing 19 of the 220 Syrian Christians kidnapped last week, its supporters have been threatening Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey and other Twitter employees. The threats were made on justpasteit.com in response to Twitter shutting down hundreds of social media accounts that had been used to spread ISIS propaganda.
CNN Money translated a portion of the post, which is written in Arabic, as saying,
“ How would you protect your miserable employees Jack , when their necks become an official target to ISIS soldiers and supporters, what would you tell their families and their sons, and you are the one who involved them in this lost war.”
Twitter and Facebook have been known to close accounts that promote violence and use hate speech, which violates their terms of use. However, the group Anonymous also has gone on the offensive against ISIS and its supporters on social media. The hacker group’s Internet war against extremists became particularly aggressive after the Charlie Hebdo attack in France. According to CNN Money , Anonymous warned ISIS in a video message earlier this month,
“You will be treated like a virus, and we are the cure. We own the Internet.”
Anonymous isn’t alone in being tired of ISIS and its supporters. Twitter posts indicate that lots of people are over ISIS threatening innocent people.
@CNNMoney @twitter When is the world going to decide enough is enough and rid the globe of this scourge?
— $Pippin$ Robert (@AnnesLimo) March 2, 2015
@CNNMoney @twitter Is there someone or something that these barbarians do not threaten?
— Matti Paananen (@MVPTHEDUDE) March 2, 2015
@cnnmoney @twitter #ISISI is totally out of control now.
— Arvind Kumar Shakya (@Arvindshakya11) March 2, 2015
According to The Guardian , Twitter employs staff especially for the purpose of investigating and, if necessary, taking down offensive and potentially dangerous accounts , citing Sinéad McSweeney’s testimony to a House of Lords committee last July that the social media giant “had ‘in excess of 100 people’ working 24/7 to examine reports to Twitter across a range of issues.”
It is unclear whether or not the threats are real. Twitter is in the process of verifying their authenticity. CNN Money quotes a Twitter spokesperson as saying, “Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials.”
