Category Archives: oud

Twitter Yanking More Terrorist Accounts, But ISIS Opening New Ones

Despite crackdowns by Twitter ( TWTR ), Facebook ( FB ) and Alphabet ( GOOGL )-owned YouTube on Islamic State material on social media sites, ISIS supporters are opening new accounts nearly as quickly as gatekeepers can yank them down, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. Twitter, which ramped up its anti-terror fight last summer, removed more than 26,000 suspected pro-Islamic State accounts in March, nearly four times the number erased in September, according to an analysis the WSJ said was conducted for the newspaper by Recorded Future, a threat-intelligence firm. ISIS supporters established more than 21,000 Twitter accounts in March, compared with about 7,000 in September, the analysis found. Twitter has 320 million active users worldwide, and new accounts can be created without using a real name. Twitter said in a statement on its website  this year that it condemned “the use of Twitter to promote terrorism,” saying it had deleted 125,000 accounts since mid-2015 for threatening or promoting terrorist acts. As a result, the company said, it had seen “this type of activity shifting off Twitter.” The WSJ said that Islamic State operatives mocked the Twitter announcement, sending their own message: A tweet of a bullet-riddled version of the company’s bluebird logo. Companies such CtrlSec are drawing “online hunters around the world to watch for suspected terrorists on social media and other parts of the Web,” said the newspaper’s report. Over the past year, the WSJ said CtrlSec reported identifying about 120,000 Twitter accounts linked to ISIS, including hundreds linked to Islamic State operative Abu al-Walid. At least three of his accounts were reported and deleted on the day of the terror attacks in Brussels, Belgium in March that killed 32 people, the WSJ said. Facebook “Zero Tolerance For Terrorists” President Obama addressed the nation in December after the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorist attack and urged high-tech and law enforcement leaders “to make it harder for terrorists to use technology to escape justice.” After Obama’s speech — which did not name specific companies — Facebook said it “has zero tolerance for terrorists.” The president called the California shooting an act of terrorism that appeared to be inspired, but not directed, by members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. His address came as the killings in Paris in November and in California in December raised concerns that the U.S. and other countries aren’t doing enough to prevent terror attacks. Investigators have said one of the shooters in San Bernardino, Calif., Tashfeen Malik, used a Facebook alias to pledge her allegiance to an Islamic State leader. Facebook said it had removed a profile page linked to one of two people who opened fire in San Bernardino. In a statement to IBD in December, Facebook said, “We share the government’s goal of keeping terrorist content off our site. Facebook has zero tolerance for terrorists, terror propaganda or the praising of terror activity, and we work aggressively to remove it as soon as we become aware of it. If we become aware of a threat of imminent harm or a planned terror attack, our terms permit us to provide that information to law enforcement, and we do.” Twitter stock was up 4% in afternoon trading in the  stock market today , while Facebook stock was down 1.5%.

Amazon, Facebook, Google In Legal Limbo On Nixed European Data Pact

Europe and the U.S. continued a privacy tug-of-war Wednesday over transatlantic data transfers, leaving tech giants like Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Facebook ( FB ) and Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Google up a legal creek until at least June. The Article 29 Working Party, an advisory group, said Wednesday that the proposed EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is “complex, various and nebulous,” but said what’s clear is that six situations in which the U.S. can survey Europeans are unacceptable. “The possibility that is left in the Shield and its nexus for bulk collection, which is massive and indiscriminate, is not acceptable,” Chairwoman Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin said during a press conference. Falque-Pierrotin also questioned the ombudsperson position, created to handle European grievances over U.S. data collection. Though it’s “great progress,” there’s no guarantee the ombudsperson — a U.S. official — will be totally independent, she said. Catherine Novelli, U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment, has been tapped for the position. But Falque-Pierrotin argued that the European Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) would be a better fit for the job. Falque-Pierrotin suggested that the Article 29 Working Party re-examine the Privacy Shield in two years, when the more stringent European General Data Protection Regulation  goes into effect. Ombudsperson, Bulk Surveillance Questioned Although the group’s opinion isn’t binding, it’s a serious blow to the proposed Privacy Shield, which is intended to replace the 15-year-old Safe Harbor Agreement , shuttered in October in a case against Facebook. Then, Austrian grad student Max Schrems accused Facebook of cooperating with an NSA data-collection program. Facebook has denied the allegation, but the European court’s ruling is “rather demanding,” Falque-Pierrotin said. The European Commission can pass the Privacy Shield without the group’s blessing. But in its current form, the Privacy Shield would be subject to numerous judicial challenges, Mary Hildebrand, a partner at law firm Lowenstein Sandler, told IBD. Under the Schrems decision, the Safe Harbor replacement must provide essentially equivalent security, she said. “The feeling is the ombudsperson doesn’t have the ability to act independently,” she said. And a January 2014 Obama directive allowing bulk surveillance isn’t very well defined from a European perspective. Now, thousands of companies are sitting in legal limbo. “It prolongs the uncertainty across the board,” Hildebrand said. “For a U.S. company to implement the Privacy Shield, it would not, for the foreseeable future, be a reliance means of data transfer.” Legal Loopholes Meanwhile, companies are jumping through legal loopholes, including standard contract clauses and binding corporate rules, for transfers. Other loopholes, like individual consent, are cumbersome for consumer-facing businesses that process thousands or millions of data transfers each day. Individual consent must be “unambiguous and fully informed,” Hildebrand said. “So, the company must tell the individual all the different uses their data could be put through,” she said. “And every time an individual would be asked to transfer data of any kind, they would have to click a different consent.” Multiply that by thousands or millions of interactions, and “can you imagine how impractical that would be?” she asked. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in Washington D.C. argued against delaying the Privacy Shield implementation, saying “a prolonged climate of regulatory uncertainty places unnecessary strain on the digital economy, hurting businesses, workers and consumers.” Image provided by Shutterstock .