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Article

20 Aug 2014

Author:
Elizabeth Dickinson, Christian Science Monitor (USA)

After James Foley murder, an effort to stamp out jihadi Twitter accounts

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The gruesome murder of American journalist James Foley yesterday was an opportunity for the...Islamic State (IS) to...[upload] video of the killing to YouTube [part of Google] and Vimeo and its social media team bombarded Twitter...Within minutes YouTube deleted the original post and Twitter was not far behind, announcing it would suspend accounts spreading the distressing video. But...[users] posted slightly different versions to evade detection...What can and should be done about extremist group accounts? Left unchecked, their feeds spread a violent message and rally support. But closing down all the feeds is a nearly impossible, even futile chore...There are also questions of censorship, with some arguing that the answer to savagery is sunlight, not darkness, and worries about regulatory overreach that could severely curtail free speech...Another site adopted by militants...JustPaste.it...has seen a surge in IS activity...[The] site’s owner, Mariusz Żurawek, says...[the site] deleted a slew of graphic IS postings. But keeping up with the flow of material from new users is a gargantuan task...Since being knocked off Twitter, IS has moved its regional spokesman accounts to a little-known platform called Diaspora...Diaspora did not respond to a request for comment...and several of the feeds appeared to have been closed after the Monitor sent a request to the company...pointing them out.