FBI's Comey: Actually, Chasing ISIS Off Twitter Makes It More Difficult For Us To Follow Them

from the things-to-think-about dept

"We are making good progress with the help of companies like Twitter at chasing the Islamic State" off the platform—the microblogging site has suspended hundreds of thousands of accounts promoting terrorism—but Comey said the challenge is that such efforts push some users "to a place where they’re less able to proselytize broadly but more able to communicate in a secure way. [We've] chased them to apps like Telegram.”

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community. Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis. While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Over and over again we keep hearing politicians and others going on and on about the need for social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to kick ISIS users off their platforms. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have called for this . And some people at these companies are supportive of this idea. Twitter regularly feels compelled to talk about how many ISIS accounts it removes Yet, as we've pointed out each time it's done so, this seems backwards. We've noted that intelligence officials have claimed that they actually getfrom following these social media accounts. But generally those voices aren't heard as much. So it's actually great to see FBI Direct James Comey (someone we rarely agree with) come out and say it directly: kicking ISIS members off Twitter makes things more difficult for law enforcement Now, of course, this all seems part of Comey's effort to then demonize encryption . But there is a larger point here: when terrorists are using social media and revealing useful info, why should we try to kick them off those platforms? Let them make mistakes.I know that the big fear from some is that letting ISIS use Twitter means they can better "recruit" but almost every study on this notes that online recruitment isn't really that effective. Most recruitment happens from people who actually know people. And cutting ISIS people off from Twitter also kills off good opportunities for counterspeech, like the time that an ISIS leader called on Muslims to join ISIS, and a whole bunch of Muslims responded with mocking tweets instead Yes, yes, I know that people saying stuff we disagree with online is very scary -- but silencing them has serious costs as well. So, yes, here's a rare instance where we agree with James Comey: pushing ISIS members off of Twitter is a bad idea. It harms the ability of law enforcement to follow them (and, gives Comey more opportunities to whine about encryption). Just keep them on Twitter and let law enforcement and the intelligence community follow them.

Filed Under: censorship, encryption, fbi, isis, james comey, law enforcement, social media, surveillance

Companies: twitter