Islamic State threatens Facebook, Twitter chiefs
WASHINGTON – Islamic State hackers have threatened two Silicon Valley tech titans, posting a 25-minute video online that shows bullet holes over the faces of Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Both companies recently stepped up efforts to block postings and accounts that promote violence and Islamic State propaganda after months of criticism from White House officials who complained social media companies weren’t doing enough to smother extremist recruiting online.
The apparent peril for two social media pioneers is the latest worrying intersection of extremist propaganda and the fast-evolving digital technology and online global presence that Twitter and Facebook represent.
The Islamic State group displays “unprecedented online proficiency,” James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, warned the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday at a hearing devoted to national security threats.
In addition to organizing or sponsoring deadly terrorist attacks in Europe, Canada, the Middle East and North Africa, Islamic State and its affiliates have used social media to recruit followers and encourage so-called “lone wolf” attacks by homegrown violent extremists on the United States and its allies.
The married couple who shot and killed 14 people Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, California, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader that morning on Facebook, for example. But they had no known contact with the group.
The latest video, purportedly created by pro-Islamic State hackers calling themselves “Sons of the Caliphate Army,” was shared on the messaging app Telegram.
“If you close one account we will take 10 in return and soon your names will be erased after we delete your sites, Allah willing, and will know that we say is true,” text in the video reads.
Twitter announced Feb. 6 that in the previous seven months it had deleted more than 125,000 accounts containing extremist material.
It’s not clear how effective that effort has been. Islamic State supporters have been known to quickly replace deleted accounts with new Twitter handles.
Facebook also has taken down offensive pages, and Zuckerberg has publicly supported the campaign against terrorist groups. “We feel a pretty strong responsibility to help make sure that society is safe,” he said in a speech this week in Barcelona, Spain.