[Infowarrior] - Lieberman calls on Twitter to block Taliban

[Richard Forno]

(Yeah, good luck with that.  At least you know where they are operating --- drive 'em off of twitter and the good guys have a harder time monitoring / engaging / collecting intel  on them.  Crazy Joe doesn't see the whole picture, just the simple view. As usual.  -- rick)


Congress calls on Twitter to block Taliban

American congressmen are calling on Twitter to block Taliban propagandists from the micro-blogging site.

By Ben Farmer, Kabul

5:07PM GMT 25 Dec 2011


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8972884/Congress-calls-on-Twitter-to-block-Taliban.html

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.

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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.


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Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.