Anonymous takes on Daesh on Twitter

London: Hacker collective Anonymous claims to have taken control of almost 100 Twitter accounts associated with Daesh in an operation begun in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

The accounts seized in “#OpISIS”, loosely linked to #OpCharlieHebdo, no longer exist, having been either closed down by Anonymous or suspended by Twitter.

In the video put up by the group to announce its success, a masked speaker, talking with the group’s iconic generated speech, declares that: “The terrorists that are calling themselves Islamic State [Daesh] are not Muslims. [Daesh], we will hunt you, take down your sites, accounts, emails and expose you. From now on no safe place for you online. You will be treated like a virus and we are the cure. We own the internet.”

The group also names a selection of Facebook accounts “suspected to have been keeping contact with terrorists Daesh in Syria and Iraq” and says it “won’t hurt to keep an eye on them”.

It is not yet clear whether Anonymous’s actions have had any wider effect on Daesh’ ability to organise using social media. While the group declares that there will be “more to come”, Daesh members continue to create accounts as fast as they are taken down.

Indeed, the group already has to contend with Twitter itself attempting to remove accounts which it identifies as promoting terror, and in August 2014 there were reports that it was considering abandoning mainstream social networks entirely.