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Anonymous knocks out thousands of ISIS Twitter accounts

In the wake of the Paris attacks last week, Hacktivist movement Anonymous recently announced its intention to go after so-called Islamist State militants and recruiters on Twitter. So far it seems to be having some real success, with claims of more than 5,500 pro-ISIS Twitter accounts taken down, and a larger number still reported to authorities and placed on vigilante ‘watch' lists.

Although Anonymous has in the past been linked with less serious actions, its loosely affiliated ‘members' have recently gone after targets like the Ku Klux Klan, revealing potential members and supporters of the white supremacist organisation. The assault on ISIS' social media presence however is much more aggressive. It's not all about hacking accounts and deleting them, or reporting them to authorities though. Some of it involves digital surveillance.

opparis

In a chat with BBC, one of those said to be helping to organise the attack on ISIS said that the idea was to acquire as much intelligence on the terrorist group as it can, in order to help facilitate the identification of all those involved in the Paris attacks. Disabling their propaganda was just one aspect of what Anonymous is doing, they said.

Of course with such an emotionally charged topic, and calls for blood from many quarters, Anonymous has to be careful not to go on a witch hunt. To avoid this, the spokesperson says, they have a vetting procedure for accounts. If one is identified as being potentially run by someone connected to ISIS, it goes on a list for further investigation. Only if it turns out to be an ISIS run account, is it subjected to true scrutiny and potentially shut down.

Although the argument has been made that intelligence agencies may prefer ISIS accounts to remain public for monitoring, Anonymous counters that propaganda is a terrorist tool that ISIS often wields online. Eliminating its ability to do so helps prevent others from joining and the fearmongering of the organisation itself to spread.

https://twitter.com/opparisofficial/status/666857505553694720

As well as the consistent attacks on ISIS, the @OPParisOfficial account driving the campaign has repeatedly Tweeted messages of solidarity. It points out that the one thing ISIS fears the most, is unity. Because it cannot combat that.

This also isn't the first time that Anonymous has gone after ISIS. It downed many social networking accounts related to the pro-intolerance network earlier this year.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: How do you guys feel about vigilante action like this? Does it make you feel represented, or do you feel like it's likely to do too much collateral damage?

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12 comments

  1. I don’t 100% agree with this. By taking down twitter accounts they’re just masking the true extent of the ISIS problem. How do we know how far spread they are, just how big the problem is if they keep closing all the accounts, and what’s more, what stops these people from just taking 3 minutes to create yet another account.
    While it is essentially blocking ISIS recruitment it’s not really doing anyone a service as authorities could use those accounts to track potential threats if GCHQ and NSA spent half as much time and effort doing what they were founded for rather than mass snooping.
    Another note is that they released the names and addresses of certain individuals to the mass public, which in my eyes lessens the seriousness that people should give about these potential threats than if anonymous just handed this information directly to authorative figures such as local police forces and national government agencies.

  2. Censorship is never the answer. Don’t like what someone’s saying? Well then argue against it.

  3. Pray for Paris ??? hasn’t religion done enough to Paris ??

  4. Arguing against something sounds a bit like a democratic approach…….when has that ever worked against a psychopathic maniac?

  5. Excellent, so long as intelligence gained is passed on to the proper authorities.

  6. doesn’t work against psychotic rants, they just shout you down.

  7. Damn 5 years of experience to join Anonymous hacktivists…they aren’t really joking about this…You gonna have to be the hacker who knows his stuff…for now, i can just cheer for them…nothing more…

  8. Right but it’s propoganda trying to recruit/convince people, you probably won’t get through to the account holder but you might get through to potental recruits. Be reasonable & understanding, let them make idiots of themselves & weaken their own position. Attack them, censor them, and anyone leaning that way becomes sympathetic.

  9. Right but it’s propoganda trying to recruit/convince people, you probably won’t get through to the account holder but you might get through to potental recruits. Be reasonable & understanding, let them make idiots of themselves & weaken their own position. Attack them, censor them, and anyone leaning that way becomes sympathetic.

    (Yes filter I have already said this, but two people said the same thing and I want to respond to both…)

  10. if it were a political argument i’d agree, but what they are doing isn’t arguing politics (though its got the nasty habit of washing over into that) but arguing ideology. they don’t need to make a strong argument that can’t be disputed because its not based on facts but emotions and opinions.

    hitler had a similar beginning, he fed off of peoples fears and prejudices to gain the power he eventually wielded and he got there by shouting down his detractors (and eventually having them all killed).

    ignoring them and hoping they’ll go away, or trying to reasonably counter their arguments just isn’t effective. better to rip the soap box out from under them.

  11. Good points.

  12. That’s certainly a valid approach but I’m afraid I agree with Alex – stop the propaganda getting out in the first place!
    In this situation I really do think that the adage “the best defence is offence” applies.