Twitter and other social media online outlets have been shutting down accounts that promote dangerous activity and terror. Some of the accounts were directly related to groups known for recruiting online. With these social media companies working with law enforcement, accounts have been taken offline to stop the recruiting and messages of hate.
With the laws dealing with the Internet far behind the actual practices and activity that happens online you have to think that there might be a privacy question to all this. But then again, if you put yourself out there in social media, that is far from private.
Groups that try to recruit, plan and spew hate are methods that terrorists use to get their message out. Take 1000 sites down and pretty quickly new ones might pop up. The more subversive conversations happen on the dark web where drug sales, prostitution and other seedier activities take place.
If you are concerned about your privacy, be careful what you post online, security settings are available to help protect you if but a little.
The messages that these subversive groups send are sophisticated and wrapped up in flashy graphics poised to target specific groups of disaffected youth. The government on the other hand sends out their own messages but they do not have the flash and presence of these subversive groups.
The government needs to up its game if it wants to win hearts and minds and sway the tide of recruitment to these subversive groups. Many foreign fighters have left the US and Europe and travel to the Middle East for training. The messages are working and streaming the tide of new recruits.
The laws and the government need to do a better job technology wise of accessing these potential targets and trying to stem the violence. Flashy videos that call out to disaffected youth are more and more pervasive.
Organizations use sophisticated methods to protect, but their online presence is crucial to stop the flow. Even encryption is causing issues for law enforcement as the subversive groups turn to that technology.
The government needs to up its game and work with social media to keep people safe. It is good that social media companies are shutting down accounts online, yet more has to be done to qwell the tide of violence.
