Isis threatens Twitter employees over blocked accounts
Isis threatens Twitter employees over blocked accounts
Terror group supporters threaten social network, as well
as co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically
By Alex Hern
Monday 2 March 2015 04.58 EST Last modified on Monday 2 March 2015 10.34
EST
Isis supporters have threatened Twitter employees,
including co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically, with death over the social
network’s practice of blocking accounts associated with the group.
In an Arabic post uploaded to the image-sharing site JustPaste.it,
the group told Twitter that “your virtual war on us will cause a real war on
you”. It warned that Jack Dorsey and Twitter employees have “become a target
for the soldiers of the Caliphate and supporters scattered among your midst!”
“You started this failed war … We told you from the
beginning it’s not your war, but you didn’t get it and kept closing our
accounts on Twitter, but we always come back. But when our lions come and take
your breath, you will never come back to life.”
Twitter’s terms of service explicitly ban “direct,
specific threats of violence against others”, and the company has followed
YouTube in proactively shutting down Isis-related Twitter accounts, with the
aid of the UK’s counter-terrorism internet referral unit.
When the company has identified a user as being
associated with Isis, it moves aggressively to keep them off the social
network. As the Guardian reported previously, “one account run by Rayat
al-Tawheed, who speaks on behalf of mainly UK-origin pro-Isis fighters, had a
replacement account taken down by Twitter within just a few minutes of its
relaunch” in September, after sending just three non-offensive tweets.
During a Lords’ committee hearing in July, Twitter’s
Sinéad McSweeney said it had “in excess of 100 people” working 24/7 to examine
reports to Twitter across a range of issues.
A Twitter spokesman told Buzzfeed that “our security team
is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement
officials”.
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