Terrorism and the internet

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

Gardener said:

What say you?

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I say trusting the government to efficiently and honestly violate our rights to deal with a statistically minimal threat is a stupid idea.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

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Interesting topic in that the pro-privacy people go so far as to lay in bed with the terrorists when they say, "We are standing by and protecting our users' privacy." It wasn't until backlash that the telegram app started to shut down all their ISIS channels. It seems that the CEO of Telegram knew that ISIS was using his app and didn't care due to his principles to his business motto.

the ISIS will always find a way to communicate within themselves. And if any means of communication turns out to be not secure for them, they'll just switch to another one. So I don't think we are actually taking part in these activities. I don't think we should be guilty or feel guilty about it. I still think we're doing the right thing, protecting our users' privacy."

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Telegram founder knew ISIS was using his service before Paris attacks (updated)

I do not think many of these privacy things will last in the long run anyway.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

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So you want even more citizen reporting & government monitoring of the general population in hopes we catch them from Internet activity? (And what makes you think even more Patriot Act thinking makes us patriots?)

OrphanSlug said:

So you want even more citizen reporting & government monitoring of the general population in hopes we catch them from Internet activity? (And what makes you think even more Patriot Act thinking makes us patriots?)

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I said nothing about the government nor the patriot act.

I simply stated my view that if a website had a suspicion that terrorists were using it that I felt they had some responsibility to report it.

I liken it to a situation where you overhear your neighbor threatening to kill his wife, and later regretting you hadn't done anything after she was killed.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

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if someone knows something directly, yes they should tell but reality is that would likely be minor...I am more than certain that those types of sites are heavily monitored by deep under covers anyway...we usually have some type of intel on most incidents before they occur.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

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more often then not, law enforcement is aware of their sites/accounts and requests the providers allow them to continue to operate... they are fantastic sources of intel.

Gardener said:

I said nothing about the government nor the patriot act.

I simply stated my view that if a website had a suspicion that terrorists were using it that I felt they had some responsibility to report it.

I liken it to a situation where you overhear your neighbor threatening to kill his wife, and later regretting you hadn't done anything after she was killed.

Click to expand...

You are missing the point.

"Report it" means tell the government at some level.

Several provisions of the Patriot Act (and its revisions, and the Freedom Act as well) are all about the private sector reporting data, or people, or something to the government. What you are asking for is a continuation of that thinking, which happens to be the same thinking that yielded bulk data spying on citizens and government growth at the expense of civil liberties.

So then the obvious question is what is the standard for reporting "suspicious" web activity?

BTW, back when it was the USSR they were fairly adapt at convincing half the nation to spy on the other half as well.

Thrilla said:

more often then not, law enforcement is aware of their sites/accounts and requests the providers allow them to continue to operate... they are fantastic sources of intel.

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I agree....shutting them down is not smart.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

Click to expand...

I don't think it is a good solution to make the site owner responsible for criminal activity on her site. She should be responsible for reporting the activity to the police, if it is reasonable that she should have noticed it. Same as in analog life the owner of a venue should be punished, if he knows that children are being raped in his bedroom.

Gardener said:

So much recent evidence points to the way Islamists use the internet. They recruit through the internet, promote ideology through the internet, communicate via the internet. My question is this: To what extent are the providers and individual websites responsible for such use?" If a website knows of a person continually promoting or justifying terrorism, should there be some obligation as a good citizen to report the user? Should the bar be placed in a different place, say the active recruitment of terrorists? The links to terrorist sites? Do you think there should be no responsibility at all, since providers and websites are only serving their own needs and not the needs of the greater community?

My opinion that a website IS responsible for being a good citizen. The explosion of Islamist violence recently indicates that a response to it be thorough and systematic, and that includes a response to the ideology involved. I believe there are limits to libertarianism, and the extremely libertarian attitude of allowing anybody to use the internet for any purpose violates the basic social construct of good citizenship. I believe websites and providers share some responsibility for alerting authorities to suspected Islamists who justify terrorism. The toll for not doing so is simply too great.

What say you?

Click to expand...

1. I'm not sure to what extent this could even work without us becoming a full-blown police state. The whole gamut of illegal activities - from child porn to software piracy - is present on the Internet, and attempting to suppress online crime without turning totalitarian is tilting at windmills. How would we know, for example, if someone who is cheering terrorist groups is actually working for that group, is a disaffected edgy teenager, or is simply a troll? How many people should the government employ to find out who these online activists are? I frequent a subreddit that is dedicated to analysis and discussion of the war in Syria. The rules there forbid people from requesting material support for any side in the conflict, but no set of beliefs is banned, so there is a minority of users there who support ISIS or al-Qaeda. This approach, I think, is the most the government can reasonably expect from website administrators.

2. Would it be fair to only apply this policing to Islamist terrorism? The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is a quasi-anarchist US-designated terrorist organization that is currently waging an insurgency against Turkey, one of our most important NATO allies, but its skill and determination in fighting ISIS have won it many fans in the West. Would expressing support for the PKK be enough to warrant being reported and investigated by the government?

3. The most egregious presence of terrorists online is on social media sites such as Twitter and Telegram, where countless accounts have spread ISIS propaganda and encouraged recruitment. The government has made attempts to shut those accounts done, but as said by others, it would be better to allow some to remain simply so we can gather intelligence on ISIS activities. It might not even benefit the fight on terrorism for us to censor everything that can be construed as support for our enemies.