ISIS Announces 'Real War'— Against Twitter

Online post threatens co-founder Jack Dorsey, Twitter employees
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 2, 2015 7:36 AM CST
ISIS Announces 'Real War'— Against Twitter
In this April 24, 2013, file photo, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey speaks at a campaign fundraiser in New York.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

Twitter's efforts to block ISIS-related accounts appears to have earned co-founder Jack Dorsey a special place on the militant group's radar. An anonymous online post yesterday on a Polish site used by computer programmers featured an image of Dorsey, with crosshairs superimposed over his face and a warning for both Dorsey and Twitter employees, CNBC reports. "Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you," the post in Arabic reads, as per BuzzFeed, which first reported on it. "We told you from the beginning it's not your war, but you didn't get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back. But when our lions [brave men] come and take your breath, you will never come back to life."

Using Google Translate, Business Insider offers further notes from the post, including that there will be a "media war" if Twitter workers keep "preventing the delivery of the holy mission to the world." In the meantime, Twitter's terms of service note that the site is well within its rights to take down "direct, specific threats of violence against others" or to use Twitter "for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities," BuzzFeed notes. A Twitter spokesman tells multiple media sources that "our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials." Catherine Shu writes at TechCrunch that she's curious why other social media sites aren't similarly on ISIS' radar, noting that both YouTube and Facebook have taken down videos showing ISIS executions. (Iraq, meanwhile, has launched a major offensive against ISIS.)

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