The Anonymous Assault On ISIS Is Hurting More Than It's Helping
from the well-he-sounded-like-a-terrorist dept
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, portions of Anonymous decided to "launch multiple operations" against the jackass collective that is ISIS/Daesh. Dubbed #OpISIS, the group's self-declared "biggest operation ever" has predominately involved posting what the group claims are ISIS affiliated Twitter accounts to Pastebin. These "ISIS affiliated" users are then reported to Twitter using a "Twatter Reporter" script being circulated among some members of the collective. In a video, Anonymous crows that the group has been responsible for bringing 20,000 ISIS-related social media accounts offline:"Meanwhile, some of the people coming to the IRC chat channel associated with the operation don't seem to really understand what's going on. One person logging into the channel asked, "Who's ISIS?" The people managing the channel also demanded that others only speak English in the chat and not "clutter up the channel with only mandarin or Spanish or something."Twitter insiders meanwhile have commented off the record that the list Anonymous has compiled is a bit of a joke:
"A spokesperson for Twitter, who asked not to be quoted by name, told the Daily Dot that the lists generated by Anonymous are not being used by the company, saying research has found them to be “wildly inaccurate.”And while the group's behavior has been held up by Presidential candidates like Ben Carson as a "model" of how to deal with terrorist groups, this kind of indiscriminate, misinformed hysteria (like oh, trying to ban all Syrian refugees based on false media reports) arguably aids ISIS more than it hurts it. Well aware of this fact, some splinter Anonymous groups (like GhostSec) have started more quietly forwarding their findings to the U.S. government. Other members of Anonymous find cooperating with the government intolerable for obvious reasons:
“Users flag content for us through our standard reporting channels, we review their reports manually, and take action if the content violates our rules,” the spokesperson said, adding: “We don't review anonymous lists posted online, but third party reviews have found them to be wildly inaccurate and full of academics and journalists."
"It seems rather foolish to me to be aiding our mortal enemies, who lock up and even torture Anons — in a fight against an evil that they themselves actually created. If the USA and Europe were willing to release our Anon POW's, and agree to stop attacking us - in exchange for our rather ample assistance against ISIS, well - that might be different. Until then, I say let NATO and the USA fight their own monsters. At least the resources they will need to dedicated to hunting ISIS can not be used to hunt Anons."So as usual, the headlessness that helps keep Anonymous alive as an ideal often winds up being its own worst enemy when it comes to coordination and quality control. That's not to say that Anonymous members can't contribute intel, disrupt some online ISIS capabilities, or act as an occasional propaganda counterweight. The group is, after all, helping things out by rick rolling pro ISIS hashtags:
Our upcoming action: spamming verified ISIS hashtags with rickrolls. Will release the list as soon as it's compiled.
— #OpParis (@OpParisOfficial) November 18, 2015
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Good news, bad news
Bad news... it's just Anonymous again.
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Re: Good news, bad news
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Just for a second there I thought you were talking about the US government.
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Just for a second there I thought you were talking about the US government.
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Re: Anonymuos
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Mob justice
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Causes
Please don't just repeat the tired old (Saudi sponsored) politically correct myths about the causes of this problem. Techdirt can do better than that! Try listening to people who have actually lived in the middle east but aren't muslim - especially ex muslims. They know what they are talking about.
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Re: Causes
Meanwhile, there are still tons of angry, disenfranchised young people joining ISI*. That doesn't make it the cause, that's just a symptom.
The causes are many, and include access to information.
Along with listening to non-Muslims in the middle east, try listening to people who have lived in the middle east and don't any more, and ARE Muslim. That way you'll have a frame of reference that makes some kind of sense.
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Causes of Daesh recruitment
So long as they have the tragedy spigot flowing hard and fast they're going to get recruits. Twitter just extends the range of their rallying banners.
I guess over here we just love blowing shit up and killing ethnics more than we hate terror.
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Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
I would suggset stop allowing Saudi Arabia to fund Wahhabism worldwide.
The reason Islamists hate America is NOT because you bomb them. You bombed Serbia but no Serbian terrosists emerged. You bombed Serbia on behalf of Kosovo muslims - and they have actually been active in terrorism.
The reason they hate America is because America is a successful powerful country that is not Islamic.
They hated Byzantium for 700 years for the same reason. The only thing that stopped them hating it was when they finally conquered it (after the west had fatally weakened is in the catastropic 4th crusade).
The only way they will stop hating the US is if the US becomes an Islamic state or vanishes from the face of the earth.
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
And we do that with glee and enthusiasm. In that regard being that the US has become a country that bombs indiscriminately, that has dispensed with due process, and even tortures, we've become as much the monster that the extremists have declared the US to be.
At this point we're merely different-colored chess-pieces.
Yes, there will always be some extremists, much as we have them here in the US, but there's a difference between whether they're merely a criminal element or a faction.
Bombing them is what drives more moderate people to the extremists. Our current hostility has assured that everyone knows someone who's been murdered by US weapons.
Of course we should expect reprisals. If your family was killed wouldn't you want to get back and those what got you?
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Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
So what motivates them to threaten Georgia???
http://www.georgianjournal.ge/society/31860-soon-there-will-be-time-of-beheading-you-video -address-to-georgians-released-on-behalf-of-islamic-state.html
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Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Not everywhere we bombed or invaded has responded with terrorism.
Unfortunately being a non islamic large successful country is quite enough to provoke their ire. You don't have to do anything.
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Ask any moron, and they'll dutifully regurgitate this pathetic propaganda meme every time, because its the only answer - delivered daily via TV by such geniuses as Ben Carson and Donald Trump - that makes Americans look like the good guys in a war the USG created, against an enemy the USG manufactured.
The fact that the USA has bombed a few nations into the stone age who DID NOT thereafter field terrorists, only means that the bombing and the follow up extermination and elimination of social infrastructure like power and water, was extremely successful.
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Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Not my line at all. I agree will all you say about US policy - the difference is that, bad as US policy is, it isn't actually the root cause.
Remember that the Ayatollah called the US "the great satan" back in the 1970's, before most of these policies had happened.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
The USA has been bombing tiny countries into the stone age since World War Two ended. American "interests" have been instrumental in eliminating any place on earth that even tried to do real democracy, mainly because it would interfere with corporate exploitation of their resources.
The USA was no "sweeter" back in the 70's. It simply had better PR and did fewer public displays of terrorism - the internet sort of put an end to its ability to destroy small countries "secretly", "quietly" and "in defense of democracy".
Rebels, by whatever name you wish to use, do not grow out of thin air, nor do they suddenly appear in one nation because another nation has color TVs and SUVs, no matter what Benny Carson or Donny Trump might spew.
To make a terrorist, you need to destroy his home, kill his wife and kids, bomb his city/town/village into dust, poison his farmlands and his wells, and burn his animals into charcoal lumps. Then, if there is any left-over munitions or land mines laying about once your done, he and his friends might be able to jury-rig a bomb out of the parts and blow something up that belongs to the invaders.
To put it another way, if Canada invaded the USA and managed to infiltrate all levels of government through subterfuge and disguise and then began a program of elimination of Americans via internment camps, rationing of food and shelter, elimination of jobs and sources of income, and separation of families to prevent rebellion, while secretly and systematically killing off all males over the age of 15, Americans bent on revenge against the invaders would be called Rebels or Freedom Fighters by other Americans, but the Canux would label them Terrorists.
You earn the terrorists you get.
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Wait, did you just meant to imply an argument that terrorism can't be motivated by reprisal to bombing because some don't necessarily retaliate?
And you don't see the logical failure in that?
Do you want me to give you a hint?
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Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Well it is usually up to the person who is proposing a correlation to justify it by presenting the evidence. Of course terrorism could be motivated by reprisal for bombing but you haven't proved it and I have presented a counter-example.
The counter example doesn't amount to a proof - I never said it did - but it does suggest other factors at work.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Okay, fine. But being the metaphorical bully biker wearing Ray Bans with a cigarette dangling off his lower lip ain't enough to tip the scales. The bombing and constant interference in local and regional politics makes them wobble but believe me, when ISIS, Al Qaeda and other terrorists try to win converts they cite Western atrocities as a primary reason to take part in violent acts — to get revenge on behalf of the victims.
Uriel is right.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Uriel is right.
No he isn't. The citing of western atrocities is propaganda - and you have fallen for it.
Read this http://www.faithfreedom.org/the-ideological-roots-of-radical-islam/
or maybe you'll believe V. S. Naipaul
http://www.faithfreedom.org/islamic-state-is-the-fourth-reich-the-most-potent-threat-to-civil ization-since-the-nazis/
People have been saying what you say for the last 15 years an it hasn't got us anywhere - in fact things have got worse.
Also it doesn't explain why most of their victims are actually local minorities. In fact they have barely done anything at all to the US.
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Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
That may provide a mechanism but it isn't a reason. The immediate reason why people rebel is never because they have suddenly become more oppressed (often the reverse is true).
People rebel because they CAN.
After the black death labourers were in short supply. This increased their bargaining power and allowed the peasant's revolt to happen.
In the late 50's/early 60's young people were in short supply (birthrate was low during the war). This increased their power within society and enabled the era of student protest to begin.
In the 1960's the higher birthrate amongst catholics in N. Ireland had changed the demographic. This increased their power within the population and enabled the "troubles" to start.
In none of these cases did the "bad treatment" of the "oppressed" group increase immediately before the problems began and in some it was actually reducing.
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Oppressive copyright laws existed long before most people started to see them as a big problem. Most of the problematic extensions had already happened long before anti-copyright activism started. New since ~1980 has been the increased ability of people to fight against such laws. We now have the means to route around them and protest against them. Once again the change is not in the level of oppression - it lies in the ability to oppose it.
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Say what now?
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Re: Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
The critical period is the period immediately before the baby boom - the dip from 1929-~1945.
And of course the bay boomers following along immediately behind increased the demand in all sorts of professions - especially in education - which in the UK forced the government to expand the universities and provide mainrenance grants.
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Oppressed people don't rebel -- What?
And oppression (aka tragedy in the form of loved ones getting injured or killed) is absolutely a legitimate grievance.
Are you being absurd on purpose?
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Re: Oppressed people don't rebel -- What?
Unfortunately the facts don't fit your theory. Of course you have to perceive a grievance BUT it is also necessary to perceive some chance of success.
Many people throughout the world and through history have had legitimate grievances but have not rebelled until they could see some chance of success. Good examples are the peoples of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania etc who suffered for centuries under the Ottomans but were not in a position to rebel successfully until the Ottomans had declined and Britain, France and Russia were in a position to help out.
But greater scholars than you
Nice combination of argument from authority and ad hominem. Two logical fallacies in one sentence - good work!
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Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Get the profit out of weaponry and see that change!
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Re: Re: Causes of Daesh recruitment
Religious minorities in IS sphere of influence are being enslaved, tortured and slaughtered. What do propose to do? Stand aside and watch?
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Re: Re: Causes
You might start with Aung San Suu Kyi and ask exactly why this widely respected Nobel peace prize winner has banned Musilms from standing for her party.
Along with listening to non-Muslims in the middle east, try listening to people who have lived in the middle east and don't any more, and ARE Muslim.
I know plenty of them - and their voices are well heard anyway. After every incident they appear in the media to explain why it has nothing to do with them. That is what most of us want to hear and the confirmation bias works just fine.
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Pin the report button on the terrorist?
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manure
is not Anonymous an idea??
based on which a totally random and dynamic group of random hackers worldwide
randomly manage to join swarms to do some random mob justice???
did I say random???
this is not a deterministic system
it is a swarm of people who have a life, and interests, and opinions... and do not follow the religion of "authority".
just trying to force the idea that they have an absolute opinion is asinine.
they can partially join to attack someone one minute just to turn around and fight someone else the next minute or just log off to go to home/work/rave party/watch the new leaked GOT/etc
the information flow and the human factor makes it so.
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Indiscriminate, misinformed hysteria
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Divide and Conquer, from Within.
While I have long suspected that the "silence" echoing from the halls of justice concerning anonymous meant that the CIAF BIN SADOJ had finally infiltrated the 'dis'-organization, this comment from one of the looniest assholes to ever stand up and be counted is in my opinion, proof that Anonymous is utterly useless and its roster has been generally replaced with CIAF BNIN SADOJ operatives.
If Ben Carson says Anonymous is an effective tool against terrorism, then Anonymous is just another malfunctioning branch of the federal government now.
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WTG Team!
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From the About Us page
Doesn't sound very "opiniony". Proven...Analysis .
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Re: Re:
Techdirt is an opinion blog, accept when it's not an opinion blog - and it's hard to determine when that happens.
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If you accept it, does it really matter?
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The only opinion he might differ on might be this: if you were to be fucked by a copyright in the ass, do you ask it to pull out or give you a creampie?
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Re:
Did something said above strike a nerve? :)
PS: Blog = b-log = Bitch Log, not empirical data repository
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ergt
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