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Al Qaeda trolled on Twitter

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Loved this story from the other day.  Some good ideas there.  ;D

Al Qaeda terrorised on Twitter: Trolls bring down account asking for ideas on how to spread extremist message after bombarding it with mocking tweets

    Security analyst urged others to hijack hashtag allegedly used by terrorists
    Social networkers responded with barrage of satirical advice

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 00:50 GMT, 17 August 2013 | UPDATED: 01:05 GMT, 17 August 2013

An apparent al Qaida Twitter account which asked followers for PR ideas has been suspended after social networkers bombarded it with mocking tweets.

Security analyst J.M. Berger urged his followers on the site to hijack a hashtag allegedly used by terrorists to canvass suggestions for 'media ops'.

Social networkers responded with a barrage of satirical advice which included the proposal that al Qaida should release a film entitled Dude, Where's My Car Bomb?

Another user suggested: 'More cats in online video releases'.

Mr Berger launched his trolling' crusade earlier this week when he alerted followers to an arabic hashtag being used to 'solicit ideas' for a public relations campaign and urged social networkers: 'You should all send some.'

One user responded: 'al Qaida the movie: Dude, where's my car bomb?'

Another wrote: 'Open up a fast food restaurant called Jihad Joes' while social networker Mike Doran suggested al Qaida's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri should 'start "Martyrdom", AQ's brand of exclusive fragrances'.

Several suggestions made reference to the pornography allegedly found at Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan after he was killed by US navy Seals in 2011.

Chris Forewit wrote: 'My suggestion for al Qaida's woes: sell Osama's porn collection on eBay.'

Other ideas included the suggestion from Calum Roberts: 'Jihadist's Got Talent: Western infidels vote for their favourite jihadi acts' and Herschel Jacobson's advice: 'More cats in online video releases.'

Mr Berger - whose own ideas included advising al Qaida to 'auction off the cabinet Osama bin Laden filmed his videos in front of' - later praised Twitter users for their work.

'Nicely trolled everyone, but keep it up,' he wrote, telling followers that their tweets helped to 'crowd out a sincere but dumb AQ idea'.

He later added: 'Thanks guys, couldn't have done it without you.'

A Twitter spokesman said the micro-blogging site would not comment on individual accounts.

A note on the Twitter profile alleged to have introduced the PR hashtag read: 'Sorry, that user is suspended.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2396012/Al-Qaeda-terrorised-Twitter-Trolls-bring-account-asking-ideas-spread-extremist-message-bombarding-mocking-tweets.html#ixzz2cSgI8jiq
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Here's a bit of a post-mortem by Berger:
.... Strictly on a practical basis, I could do this all day, every day, and there are hashtags that would have a much wider impact. I don't think that's a good idea, for any number of reasons. I've been over the conundrum of whether to allow jihadis to operate online or try to thwart them before, and my opinion remains the same -- we should disrupt them, but not indiscriminately.

There are valid intelligence benefits from allowing extremists to do their thing on the Internet, although I think this assertion has become a sacred cow among terrorism analysts in and out of government, who don't want to be bothered with the work that results when a useful source of information is terminated. I'm sympathetic to that issue, but I think it's shortsighted, especially when there are concrete advantages to smart disruptions.

That said, it's very much possible to go overboard with disruption. We need to pick our moments and pick our battles, or else we'll muck up the ecosystem, ironically allowing jihadis to hide more effectively in a noisy data set.

I was pleased to see that most of the actual tweets being trolled were in good humor and targeted terrorists directly, rather than making crude comments based on purely on race or religion. There was some such content, certainly, especially after the trollathon expanded from just my followers to the whole Internet, but it was less than I would have expected ....

Also, a longer piece by the same author on how he sees Twitter "supercharging jihadist recruitment" via automated recommendations.
 
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