Anonymous Lists Thousands Of ‘ISIS Twitter Accounts’

Hacker group Anonymous, working with two other similar organisations, has released its largest list to date of Twitter accounts it says are affiliated with or support militant group Islamic State.

The release of about 9,200 account names is part of a campaign against IS launched in the wake of January shootings in Paris that were linked to the movement. Two other hacker collectives, GhostSec and Ctrlsec, collaborated on verifying the account, according to Anonymous.

The group said it has also disrupted nearly 1,000 websites, email accounts and VPN connections it says are linked to IS.

Anonymous said in a statement that the release is intended to pressure Twitter to remove the accounts. Anonymous has said it believes IS uses large numbers of Twitter accounts as the linchpin leading users to other online content, such as online messages and videos.

“The more attention it gets the more likely it becomes Twitter takes action in removing these accounts and making a serious impact on the ability of ISIS to spread propaganda and recruit new members,” Anonymous stated.

Twitter does not specifically prohibit users from being members of IS or expressing support for it, but does ban direct threats of violence. Accounts infringing this rule may be removed, and Twitter said it has suspended a large number of feeds that have done so, but the company has said it doesn’t actively monitor the content of the feeds hosted on its service.

“We review all reported content against our rules, which prohibit direct, specific threats of violence against others,” Twitter said in a previous statement.

Many of the accounts have been suspended since the list’s release.

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