Twitter has moved far beyond just being a service you talk about your lunch on, and along with the many useful services it’s a platform for, it can also be a tool for terrorism and violence. At least that’s how seven House Republicans in the US see it, and that’s why they’re asking the FBI to shut down Hamas-related Twitter accounts.
The request was sent to the FBI back in September, but so far the agency has taken no action, and the congressmen behind the request have been getting more vocal about it. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who’s been leading the campaign put it this way to The Hill on Wednesday:
Allowing foreign terrorist organisations like Hamas to operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy. Failure to block access arms them with the ability to freely spread their violent propaganda and mobilize in their War on Israel. Anti-American foreign terrorist groups around the world are doing the same thing every day. The FBI and Twitter must recognise sooner rather than later that social media is a tool for the terrorists.
So far the FBI hasn’t released any sort of feedback to the request. Instead, an FBI spokesperson told The Hill that the FBI is considering the request internally, and intends to respond to the letter directly. Whether or not that response will involve actually locking down any Twitter accounts is yet to be seen. [The Hill via The Verge]