Social media giant Twitter is reportedly refusing to cooperate with U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring chatter from terror groups such as ISIS.
And the decision could be putting American lives in danger.
That’s according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, which revealed that Twitter has cut off the U.S. intelligence community from using the company Dataminr to gather data.
Dataminr scours Twitter looking for chatter and uses algorithms that may predict when attacks or political unrest are imminent. For example, Dataminr notified its clients of the Paris terror attacks last year more than 10 minutes before major news organizations broke the story
It’s a heavy-duty service “only available to clients with a big enough checkbook,” according to a report by Wired.com.
Major U.S. intelligence communities were among those clients, who used the service as an important tool in the War on Terror and to monitor ISIS.
But according to reports, Twitter has told Dataminr to stop cooperating with U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Analysis of Twitter and other social-media services has become increasingly important to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies tracking terror groups. Islamic State posts everything from battlefield positions to propaganda and threats over Twitter,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
While Twitter actively deletes any pro-terror account it finds, “Islamic State supporters create new accounts almost as quickly.”
Not everyone is upset by the news of the Twitter fracture, however. Privacy advocates hailed the move as an important check against government surveillance.
“Post-Snowden, American-based information technology companies don’t want to be seen as an arm of the U.S. intelligence community,” Peter Swire, an expert on data privacy, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal report.
Then it’s up to the American people to stop using twitter until they decide to cooperate. How badly does twitter want the American dollar?
A society where texting, tweeting and I-phones are more important than family, nation or reality.
Unfortunately, the American public will not be inconvenienced to do anything patriotic or logical. We could change all sorts of Wrongs in the country if the people would just agree not to buy certain services or products for even just a short time, but they are not willing to be inconvenienced for a day or week no matter what the cause. They are quick to complain, but refuse to take any action to resolve a problem. Sad.
How very true, sad but true!
As for me and my family, we will take care of ourselves
Forget the Govt and twitter, Facebook and all of the other
Morons who think they control the World!
Twitter can go flick themselves!!!!!!!!!!!
Boycott, it is working for or again Target. Boycott Facebook too. I won’t belong to either.
Horn won’t allow my comments Good by Horn
I’M DONE WITH TWITTER….LOW-LIFE BASTARDS
You are so right Joy. If the American people want to STOP the war on our country against ISIS or any other terror group, we ALL need to boycott or start a petition against spending money with twitter. After all, if they are US based company then they want be for long….
Hmmm, seems to be a conflict between a right to privacy or cooperating with a government nearly no one can trust. What to do, what to do!
BOYCOTT TWITTER!!!
Very bad and unpatriotic judgment on the part of Twitter.
They won’t loose much on me. I never had a twitter account or sent a Twit to a Twit….Screw ‘um.
(Before some kiddie jumps on me I know ithey call it a “tweet” , but I call the people dedicated to it are,,, Twits)
Our so-called government may not have UNLIMITED access to your personal information. Hopefully. Only Insurance companies, Tax collectors, and banks. THANKS Twitter.
If the government has probable cause to look at a specific person and gets a warrant from a judge twitter has no legal objection not to help the government.
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The Constitution does not guarantee absolute privacy, only that there is probable cause and a judge issues a warrant.
You can’t have it both ways. Either we have privacy from the government, or we don’t. I don’t have anything to hide, so I could care less who vets my posts. But, I WOULD like them to be able to stop terrorist attacks. It’s either the 99% give up their privacy, so they can catch these guys, or nobody gives up their privacy, & we face the risk of terrorist attacks. Hard decision!
It is called the right to privacy. Now i am not sticking up for the terrorist’s, but everyone should know how crooked our government is. They would start checking everyone’s Twitter accounts to see what people are up to. It goes the same way with Apple not helping to unlock phones for the government.
They will change their mind once they start getting sued by people who lost family members due to terrorism that could have been prevented if Twitter would have spoken up.
I surely do not see the problem. 99% of the stuff that is tweeted is garbage any way. If it is able to stop or control criminal activity as well as Terrorists activity I support the government. To much emphasis is placed on the modern conveniences. I personally do not subscribe to Twitter and have no desire to. I only use facebook to play the games. I do not use the social media for any communication business or social communications. I use my home phone and the US mail for all communications. This helps me to sleep good at night. If I want to talk to somebody where I have to dial a number I want to talk to that person instead of texting. Perhaps this is old fashioned but it is great deal safer. How can anybody expect their rite to privacy with any of these modern communication devices. Think back when they were not available. we all got along just fine. If the industry does not police itself than the government has to. We do not want another 9-11. So I say grin and bear it!
Muslim owned. Look it up.
Come on Twitter aid the feds here since the terrorists use Twitter accounts for code for where to strike next.
Not like an Iphone break in.
Make publlic & share?? Or risk aiding terrorisim even more online.
If a terrorist attack occurs and it is learned that the attack could have been prevented if Twitter had cooperated, there is likely to be a move to abandon Twitter.
The government may still pursue the same information but develop a different approach to collect it.