Exclusive: Anonymous Proves Twitter Does Little to Fight Child Pornography and ISIS
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This report contains information gathered over the past few months. The Varuna Group granted me access to their findings, WolfSec helped point me in the direction of various accounts, while other materials were gathered from my own personal research.
This will be the first of several articles on the subject matter.
On January 13th of this year an extremely graphic Twitter account was outed as being a distributor of Child Pornography. For legal purposes images from the account in question could not be captured and distributed, however the event was chronicled.
The grotesque page was brought to light between approximately 5 to 5:30 PM on the 13th and lasted for nearly three hours. The following images highlight some of the frustration from Twitter users wanting the account shut down immediately.
The Anonymous group WolfSec grew increasingly frustrated as over an hour passed without any action from Twitter despite numerous reports.
I would report the page twice to Twitter in hopes they would finally review the page and suspend the account. After nearly three hours and countless reports, the page was finally down. Yet, it was not due to the account being suspended.
Within those three hours, Twitter never suspended the account @Raju66936072 simply changed their Twitter handle to cover their Child Pornography operation. As of the publishing of this article, this is what you find when searching for the account.
While not every report nor tweet calling for individuals to report the account has been documented, there is no doubt that hundreds of reports were made. As Anonymous members and supporters spread the Child Sexual Exploitation Report Form, allowing users to report the account without having to view the pornography itself.
The slow response time shown here is representative in their response towards the Fundamentalist Islam terrorist organization, Daesh (ISIS). Even threats against Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are not quickly removed.
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A lawsuit has recently been filed, accusing Twitter of not doing enough to help prevent ISIS from using their platform as a recruiting tool. Portions of the suit made by Tamara Fields reads:
As of December 2014, ISIS had an estimated 70,000 Twitter accounts, at least 79 of which were ‘official,’ and it posted at least 90 tweets every minute.
…
After joining ISIS, new recruits become propaganda tools themselves, using Twitter to advertise their membership and terrorist activities. For example, in May 2013, a British citizen who publicly identified himself as an ISIS supporter tweeted about his touch-down in Turkey before crossing the border into Syria to join ISIS in the fight against the Syrian regime.
….
And in December 2013, the first Saudi Arabian female suicide bomber to join ISIS in Syria tweeted her intent to become a martyr for the ISIS cause, as she embarked for Syria.
….
Through its use of Twitter,ISIS has recruited more than 30,000 foreign recruits
over the last year, including some 4,500 Westerners and 250 Americans.”
Tamara Fields’ husband, Loyd — an Army veteran, was shot and killed on November 9th 2015 in Amman, Jordan. ISIS took responsibility for his murder which led to this lawsuit. Which also provides evidence that ISIS uses Twitter to illicit donations:
“According to David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, “[y]ou see these appeals on Twitter in particular from, you know, well-know[n] terrorist financiers . . . and they’re quite explicit that these are to be made to ISIL for their military campaign.”
…
The Financial Action Task Force confirms that “individuals associated with ISIL
have called for donations via Twitter and have asked the donors to contact them.”
These tweets even promote “donation tiers.” One ISIS-linked cleric with the Twitter account @Jahd_bmalk, for instance, sought donations for weapons with the slogan
‘Participate in Jihad with your Money.
The account tweeted that “if 50 dinars is donated, equivalent to 50 sniper rounds, one will receive a ‘silver status.’ Likewise, if 100 dinars is donated, which buys eight mortar rounds, the contributor will earn the title of ‘gold status donor.’” According to various tweets from the account, over 26,000 Saudi Riyals (almost $7,000) were donated.
The following screenshot is from within the complaint and documents instances where ISIS has indeed used the platform to help finance their operation of terror.
In response to the lawsuit Twitter released the following, “While we believe the lawsuit is without merit, we are deeply saddened to hear of this family’s terrible loss. Like people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups and their ripple effects on the internet.”
FBI Director James Comey raised concerns over Terrorist activity on the platform, “Twitter works as a way to sell books, as a way to promote movies, and it works as a way to crowdsource terrorism — to sell murder.” Recently Facebook increase their efforts to stop hate speech on their platform by launching a new initiative:
The U.S.-based group launched its “Initiative for Civil Courage Online” in Berlin, pledging over 1 million euros ($1.09 million) to support non-governmental organizations in their efforts to counter racist and xenophobic posts.
While the move was made in efforts to combat anti refugee sentiments in Germany, speculation leads one to believe the initiative could allow for Facebook to do more against ISIS propaganda on their platform.
Recently the Anonymous group GhostSec released a statement about a new operation named #OpTwitter stating:
This week, GhostSec launched an #OpISIS movement to hold Twitter accountable for its seeming indifference towards terrorist accounts. #OpTwitter was launched in order to apply pressure on Twitter to step up and be more diligent in suspending accounts that post graphic propaganda (beheadings & other violent content), threats and recruitment attempts. So, GhostSec and other #OpISIS operatives have been sending chastising tweets to Twitter, its CEO Jack Dorsey and a few media organizations on Twitter.
It should be noted that this movement, in addition to targeting terror-linked accounts, also includes bestiality and pedophila Twitter accounts. And, #OpBeast is also on board #OpTwitter.
The following grotesque images represent some of the “graphic propaganda” mentioned in the above statement.
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The ISIS propaganda on Twitter went far enough as to allude to the attacks in Paris several weeks before they happened. Those specific attacks took the lives of 130 individuals, this tweet was captured from October 22nd.
After the attacks, the propaganda continued.
ISIS has even taken to threatening the United Kingdom with a Paris like attack.
I recently had the opportunity to conduct an extended interview with Anonymous member X Anon (a different member of the collective from my previous interviews) of WolfSec about frustrations encountered when attempting to eliminate ISIS presence on Twitter.
X Anon quickly expressed those frustrations when asked whether any difficulty was encountered in WolfSec’s attempts to remove ISIS from Twitter, “…We get images taken down and they just put another one back up and ISIS members retweet it.” X Anon continued, “So one by one by one we keep getting accounts taken down and they recreate them, again and again and again and again.”
When asking X Anon if there was any fear within WolfSec and the Anonymous Collective when it came to confronting ISIS on Twitter the response was clear, “We are not afraid of these people at all; they are ridiculous, so disorganized — no sense.” X Anon made it clear that members of WolfSec receive death threats from ISIS daily, but are undeterred in their mission stating, “If you haven’t gotten a death threat in WolfSec you haven’t arrived.” After stating the threats come on a nearly daily basis.
“Wolves go out, research and translate accounts to make sure the people are legit and not innocent Muslims.” X Anon stated when asked how the group goes about differentiating ISIS accounts from accounts that are written in Arabic. Following that statement X Anon stated, “Twitter and Social Media need to start taking accountability for what is on their platform, we are not talking about Freedom of Speech — we are talking about homicide on record.”
During this portion of the interview X Anon informed me that several members of WolfSec (including X Anon) had just received death threats from ISIS. When asked what the threats were X Anon stated, “…They threatened to behead me, that’s generally what they say.” X Anon was not disturbed or shaken by the threat and chose to continue on with the interview.
The conversation moved towards a direction of some of the more alarming this X Anon has seen from ISIS on Twitter, “Several days ago we came across accounts of ISIS attempting to sell a Norwegian prisoner.” X Anon provided me with the below picture that was captured from Twitter.
“WolfSec has ISIS monitored on every level,” was X Anon’s response to how the group was able to come across this information. When asked if X Anon felt Twitter was doing enough to keep this kind of material off their platform the response was a strong criticism:
“It is insanity what Twitter is allowing to be out there on social media, there are kids out there — this is not acceptable. They need to be held accountable — they are the reason these attacks happened — ISIS has been able to recruit on Twitter. It has all happened because of Twitter, Paris happened because of Twitter.”
After being asked to elaborate as to why they felt that way X Anon responded:
“Because their main platform to recruit is Twitter, it is where they recruit most of their members. Facebook? Not so much. Twitter is where their feeding ground is and where they find most of their recruits. Twitter is how they get through to the public and is what they use to get their recruits.”
When asked what they would like Twitter do differently X Anon replied:
“I would like to see them permanently ban anyone that promotes graphic violence on there account. Those IPs should be banned and shut down in order to protect the public from Isis, they have a responsibility.”
If given the opportunity to speak directly to CEO Jack Dorsey X Anon would say the following, “I would tell him that he should be ashamed of himself, he needs to take accountability, responsibility, and that he is self-serving and has created a platform that is a danger not only to the public but to the world and humanity.”
As of the publication of this article Twitter has not respond to a request for comment.