US calls on Twitter to ban accounts spreading militant propaganda

[LEGENDARY WARRIOR]

US calls on Twitter to ban accounts spreading militant propaganda

The US has called on the social micro-blogging site, Twitter, to clamp down on accounts which post propaganda content from the Taliban, the Telegraph reported on Sunday.

The Senate committee on Homeland Security, headed by senator Joe Lieberman, claim the move is part of a wider campaign to limit the space accorded to violent extremists propaganda on the internet and Social Media.

The Taliban had embraced social media posting regular updates on attacks, official statements from their leaders, and propaganda. They also upload videos of militant training, sermons by prominent members Taliban. It is believed they also use the sites to scour for new recruits.
Some of the accounts used include @ABalkhi, which has more than 4,100 followers. Another is @alemarahweb, which has more than 6,200 followers. Both claim to be official websites of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”.
Twitter however declined to offer a reaction on the story. Rachel Bremer, a spokesman for Twitter, said: “This isn’t something we’d comment on.”
In 2008, Lieberman had Google revisit its hosting policies to limit accounts belonging to the Taliban and the al Qaeda.
Leslie Phillips, a spokesman for the senate homeland security committee, said: “Senator Lieberman’s efforts to eliminate violent extremism propaganda from the internet and social media has been a campaign of persuasion.”
Earlier this month, US Vice President Joe Biden had said that the Taliban per se were not enemies of US. Suggesting the Taliban only represented an inherent threat if it allowed al Qaeda to strike against the US, the Vice President said, “That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens US interests.”
While talking to The Express Tribune, Taliban spokesperson, Zabiullah Mehsud explained the use of Twitter by the Taliban, “We trained our mujahideen in the use of (modern) media at scattered places in Afghanistan,” adding they were not against modernity."

Twitter accounts to be banned on militant propaganda charges.

 

[LEGENDARY WARRIOR]

Congress calls on Twitter to block Taliban

Senators want to stop feeds which boast of insurgent attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and the casualties they inflict.
Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the internet and social media.
The Taliban movement has embraced the social network as part of its propaganda effort and regularly tweets about attacks or posts links to its statements.
The information has ranged from highly accurate, up-to-the-minute accounts of unfolding spectacular attacks, to often completely fabricated or wildly exaggerated reports of American and British casualties.
Twitter feeds including @ABalkhi, which has more than 4,100 followers, and @alemarahweb, which has more than 6,200 followers, regularly feature tweeted boasts about the deaths of "cowardly invaders" and "puppet" Afghan government forces.

Taliban spokesmen also frequently spar with Nato press officers on Twitter, as they challenge and rebut each other's statements.
Twitter declined to say if the company had been asked to block the feeds by Mr Lieberman.
Rachel Bremer, a spokesman for Twitter, said: "This isn't something we'd comment on."
In 2008 Google agreed to tighten its rules for hosting videos on YouTube after Mr Lieberman complained the site hosted films from al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist movements showing attacks on American forces in Iraq.
Leslie Phillips, a spokesman for the senate homeland security committee, said: "Senator Lieberman's efforts to eliminate violent Islamist extremism propaganda from the internet and social media has been a campaign of persuasion.
"He has written letters, for example to Google seeking the company to enforce more strongly its terms of service, which ban the sort of thing that we see from violent Islamist extremists.
"Google responded positively to the Senator's letter."
However Twitter is reported to be rejecting the move after pointing out that unlike al-Qaeda, the Taliban movement is not registered by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organisation.

source: Telegraph

 

[VCheng]

That is just plain stupid.

Censorship never works.