Twitter shut down about 2,000 ISIS linked accounts, prompting death threats against the social network’s co-founder. The ISIS Twitter accounts shut down reportedly include some of the “most important distributors” of Islamic State messages.
The ISIS Twitter co-founder death threat against Jack Dorsey was issued on Monday afternoon. Supporters of the Islamic State posted online threats against Dorsey which included the use of both his full name and photo. Twitter’s security team is current “investigating the veracity” of the Jack Dorsey death threat with law enforcement.
ISIS Twitter account shut downs quietly began last week. According to ABC News , 13 or the 16 major Islamic State Twitter accounts were among those closed. ISIS has been extremely adept at utilizing online social networking platforms, Twitter in particular, to spread its message around the world. Some terrorism experts feel that the internet savvy nature of ISIS has helped to attract recruits from the West.
Twitter has reportedly helped ISIS garner Islamic State fighters from 90 countries around the globe. The suspension of ISIS Twitter accounts was allegedly not conducted at the behest of the United States government. Federal agencies would reportedly have preferred the ISIS accounts remain open for monitoring and intelligence gathering purposes.
The ISIS Twitter account shut downs have perhaps had a reverse effect. Instead of the Islamic State posts being published as usual without a lot of fanfare, all the media coverage about the suspension has given the Islamic State an even larger platform.
Twitter is now citing policy violations which do not condone the making of specific or direct threats of violence against others, as the reason for the sudden ISIS account suspensions. Tweets from the Islamic State have been widely quoted and embedded in media stories about ISIS for at least a year. Why Twitter has suddenly decided that the posts are a violation of policy remains unclear.
The ISIS Jack Dorsey death threats reportedly first appeared on Pastebin. The author of the Twitter co-founder death threat remains unknown. The individual threatened to “search the streets” for Twitter employees to behead.” The threat also noted that it did not matter if the Twitter staffers were “male or female, young or old.” The ISIS threat was reportedly in response and in pursuit of a “real war” against social media networking company’s “virtual war” against ISIS.
What do you think about the ISIS Twitter death threats against Jack Dorsey and other staffers?
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