I saw one account that threatened to exterminate tens of millions of people today. I reported the post but somehow I doubt Twitter will do anything about it.
Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
171–180 of 202 posts
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#172Twitter really ought to do something about Sybil attacks. In fact, they could probably fix their monetization strategy at the same time; start charging users some small fee in exchange for having their identity verified. Non verified accounts can't be retweeted or they have some caps on the number of public views they can get, or interactions they can have with accounts that don't follow them, etc. Now that I think about it, this could solve their spam and harassment problems too.
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bill Maher, once heralded as an extreme left liberal (who supported gay marriage and marijuana legalization in the early 90's when nobody thought either would ever happen), consistently talks about the "threat of Islam to democracy". Is he a neocon now? And should we remove his speech to "reduce hate" the same way you're suggesting the_donald be removed?
You pivoted away from the topic. Bill Maher case may be interesting to discuss, but doesn't change whether the_donald calls for hate. Which actually looking at the subreddit shows it does.
Not at all. Which is the hate?
Either Bill Maher (a liberal hero) is a racist islamaphobe, or, the_donald users who share the same views as him... aren't islamaphobes.
Because unless we're not talking about Islamaphobia, what else did you actually see that could be considered "hateful"? Because on that same sub you'll find people of all colors, and most religions discussing things. You'll find legal immigrants. You'll find ex-Muslims and atheists. You'll find gays. You'll find women. You'll find Brits. You'll find lifelong Democrats and Libertarians. You'll find ex-"Bernie Bros" who were furious at the DNC's betrayal of Bernie Sanders. You'll find people who grew up under Communist rule. I know, because I've seen every single one of those on that sub and almost every one of those demographics has posted a picture of themselves with a MAGA hat at one point or another.
If you want an actual white supremacist sub, you're thinking of /r/uncensorednews which actually lists Jews with (((triple parenthesis))). That's a pretty sharp contrast to the_donald. But it wouldn't be, if the_donald was as hateful as been claimed.
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is that the real comms already do happen outside of Twitter, and that Twitter is simply a recruitment platform/loudspeaker
Indeed. I would be very surprised if any real planning happened on twitter DMs. That would be unbelievably stupid, with the NSA stuff now being so well known
While not quite planning, announcements do occur. Found a large number of accounts connected to the attackers from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack
when it was ongoing.
Minutes before the attack:
> #texasattack: "May Allah accept us as mujahideen."
Minutes after:
> Allahu Akbar!!!! 2 of our brothers just opened fire.
Also saw Salafists retweet an old cartoon by Charlie Hebdo of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hours before the Charlie Hebdo shooting occurred.
I'm divided about this issue. One the one hand, I've seen accounts that glorify the Paris attacks and link to bomb making materials, on the other hand, I've seen lots of video's from Syria and Palestine which does indeed radicalize youth, but is also not directly terrorist propaganda (a lot of this is newsworthy, but does not end up in the news, so it is valuable to share on social media). Should linking to an Anwar al-Awlaki video be grounds for a ban? Remember, these videos are on Youtube.
I like to think back 10-15 years when people had to self-host their websites. Stuff that, back then, would surely get you a knock on the door, slips through daily on social networks. I say: If you can't host it yourself, you can't rely on a third party to host it for you and protect your anonymity.
So yes, chase them underground, and apply more serious tracking to those that are acting more seriously (someone on Telegram writing about terrorism is way more serious than someone on Twitter writing about terrorism). Try to keep social media free of war propaganda. And be careful to not overdo it. America is a country where writing a Facebook post about Apple interspersed with quotes from Fight Club can get you SWATted [1].
[1] http://nyconvergence.com/2011/06/ny-man-uses-fight-club-quot...
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#175I'm more interested in why it took them this long, while they're perfectly fine suspending accounts that are politically opposing to their worldview. How are political dissenters more dangerous than actual terrorists?
> why it took them this long
There is no direct business value in banning users from your platform. In fact, doing so is a short-term net negative.
This is also why Twitter was so slow to ban bots: you gain a fraction of satisfaction for your users that interact with annoying bots, at the cost of dwindling user numbers.
> suspending accounts that are politically opposing to their worldview
Because highly visible users of their platform (verified celebrities) started DMing the CEO and threatened to leave if bullies were not dealt with. Creating a safe space for the social elite is very much adding business value to Twitter and makes investors happy.
I think Twitter just awaited the US government reaction, and took as long as the law / future business prospects allowed them. That Twitter propaganda has become a major problem for the intelligence agencies and anti-terrorism units is evident. It takes a long time to properly deal with these problems, just like Twitter will probably take years to combat astro-turfing bots meddling with a foreign election (which seems to me, the logical next step in the evolution of mass automatic banning of problematic accounts).
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#176Saw a lot of speculation about what ISIS does or does not do without actual links. Here are a few good ones I've seen in the past: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/isis-opsec-encryption-manuals-... This podcast was pretty good. ISIS were using a Turkish Dropbox like service to move files ... except the service was actually based in France, something a whois on the domain could have easily detected. Fighters have also ge…
> So ... they're both more sophisticated than you think when it comes to opsec. And less sophisticated than you think when it comes to opsec.
A lot of their recruits are people in their 20s or even teens from various countries including western ones. They are basically regular users that try to learn opsec as they do. And the youth from most muslim countries also use smartphones and most of the services we use too.
ISIS used to be more sophisticated in terms of opsec when their officers were mostly former officers from Saddam but since then it feels like either the drone strikes managed to decapitate their hierarchy or that there were internal purges to promote the truly ideologically crazies.
Also, when an operation is said to have succeed thanks to opsec, always remember that it can be a way to cover an internal humint source.
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
You pivoted away from the topic. Bill Maher case may be interesting to discuss, but doesn't change whether the_donald calls for hate. Which actually looking at the subreddit shows it does.
Not at all. Which is the hate? Either Bill Maher (a liberal hero) is a racist islamaphobe, or, the_donald users who share the same views as him... aren't islamaphobes. Because unless we're not talking about Islamaphobia, what else did you actually see that could be considered "hateful"? Because on that same sub you'll find people of all colors, and most religions discussing things. You'll find legal immigrants. You'l…
You can always find a worse place. There are places worse than 4chan too, but I don't see how that's relevant to the_donald being hate filled / fuelled.
There's islamophobia, there's cherry picking of news about rape claims, infowars crap about illegal immigrants which is just hate mongering, posts like "let's trigger illegals and show some love for our ICE agents".
I'm not going to link to that dump specifically because they don't deserve the publicity. If you don't see this as hate mongering, we disagree on a very fundamental level.
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think Free Speech has ever meant being required to publish others speech. Freedom of the press was meant to ensure you can say what you wish via pamphlets or starting your own newspaper, wherein you own the method of speech. That is why it was fundamental to Free Speech. One has never been able to compel a publisher to publish them. You may have a different concept, but to my way way of thinking that has alwa…
What's your opinion on cake decorations?
Please don't use that whataboutism here.
But, since you asked, businesses that offer services to the public can refuse service to anyone UNLESS they're refusing a member of a protected class, for being a member of a protected class.
White restaurant owner kicking out a black lady because she's belligerent/drunk/whatever -- fine.
White restaurant owner kicking out a black lady because she's black -- not fine.
Religious bakery owner refusing service because it's Monday -- fine.
Religious bakery owner refusing service because the customer is gay -- not fine.
But again, please no more whataboutism.
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't he know Tor is completely compromised?
that's news to me. a cursory google search doesn't show anything substantive (only tor browser vulnerabilities). are you saying that tor, the protocol, is compromised? what's the basis for your claim? we do know that state actors can break it at great expense, but that isn't really a statement about tor weakness as much as it's a statement about the resources of state actors. and for a person like RMS who is likely n…
It has happened in the past (chosen example: 2014). Not sure if any current vulnerability is public.
https://blog.torproject.org/tor-security-advisory-relay-earl...
https://blog.torproject.org/did-fbi-pay-university-attack-to...
Re: Twitter Suspends 300k Accounts Tied to Terrorism in 2017
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't he know Tor is completely compromised?
that's news to me. a cursory google search doesn't show anything substantive (only tor browser vulnerabilities). are you saying that tor, the protocol, is compromised? what's the basis for your claim? we do know that state actors can break it at great expense, but that isn't really a statement about tor weakness as much as it's a statement about the resources of state actors. and for a person like RMS who is likely n…
From a certain perspective, he is a "state-level" threat. Not an imminent, physical threat, certainly - this is a threat of a different type. He loudly and vigorously argues and advocates against various government policies and actions (as well as those of the largest corporations most deeply entangled with the state apparatus) and gives advice on how best to resist them.