Keep in mind, there are actual feeds belonging to active terrorist organizations out there. I don't know who those two feeds mentioned belong to and I don't care enough to look into them. I am sure that Lieberman was speaking about the actual terrorists' Twitter accounts (and perhaps those two belong to them too?). Most likely he was responding to or supporting work started by families of victims of terrorism who have launched a campaign to get Twitter to shut down the actual terrorist feeds. Hezbollah has one, so does the Taliban. These goofs have killed many innocent people and make life hell for countless more. The efforts to shut down those actual terrorist feeds is the real story here. It is an initiative that Lieberman did not start, but probably supports.

Journalism being what it is, I think this writer is spinning the story to be about Lieberman in order to make him look like he is pro-censorship--which he may or may not be. Either way, the issue of Terrorists on Twitter is not the case or point to pin on him. And shutting down the Twitter accounts belonging to mass murderers is not the same as taking a star off of a Christmas tree because it offends someone (like on SP).

There is still a case to be made in favor of protecting terrorists use of Twitter, and there are purists who don't think any speech should ever be censored or ever held accountable for what that speech promotes, no matter how vile it is. I disagree, but that is just me.


--Previous Message--
: Joe Lieberman is at it again. And by "it," I mean
: throwing around the word "terrorist" as an excuse to
: further sanitize the web for our "protection." Having
: already talked Google into allowing users to flag Youtube videos
: as "terrorist," Lieberman went a step further, asking
: for the "Report as Terrorist" option to be applied to
: Blogger as well.
:
: Having taken a swing at long-form blogging, Lieberman is now
: taking the fight to the other end of the "wordiness"
: spectrum: Twitter.
:
: Senators want to stop feeds which boast of insurgent
: attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and the casualties they
: inflict. Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland
: Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to
: eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the
: internet and social media. The Taliban movement has embraced the
: social network as part of its propaganda effort and regularly
: tweets about attacks or posts links to its statements.
:
: Like everyone else in this digital age, the Taliban is using
: various social media to communicate with its fans. But why
: should our Senators be concerned about what the Taliban had for
: lunch? And more importantly, why do they feel so deeply that
: forcing Twitter to block these feeds will prevent future
: "violent Islamist extremist" action? If NATO forces
: are attacked and no one tweets about it, does it change the
: outcome?
:
: The feeds named in the Telegraph article (@ABalkhi and
: @alemarahweb) are about as "threatening" as a Westboro
: Bapist Church Twitter account, with a few facts tucked away
: between tweet after tweet filled with jingoistic statements and
: "preaching to the converted." The very idea that
: blocking feeds like this will deter or diminish future Taliban
: activity is laughable at best, and disingenuous grandstanding at
: worst. In fact, it makes Lieberman and his fellow Senators
: nothing more than "preaching to the converted"
: grandstanders, scoring easy points with voters who still somehow
: believe the only thing Twitter has to offer is lunch
: descriptions and terrorist propaganda.
:
: As for Twitter, it won't even confirm whether or not Lieberman
: has asked it to block the feeds.
:
: Rachel Bremer, a spokesman for Twitter, said: "This
: isn't something we'd comment on."
:
: Not only that, but Twitter won't have to block these feeds no
: matter how nicely Lieberman asks because the Taliban is not
: registered as a terrorist organization by the State Department.
: Any censorship applied by Twitter would pretty much just be a
: personal favor to Joe, rather than a government-sanctioned
: shutdown.
:
: Lieberman obviously believes that his success with Youtube
: filtering should be applied to every area of the internet. He's
: already gone after the long (Blogger) and the short (Twitter)
: which means his next request for "Report as Terrorist"
: buttons will be sent to Tumblr, possibly resulting in the
: removal of f*ckyeahterrorism.tumblr.com and
: ryangoslingtaliban.tumblr.com.
:
: One has to wonder why Lieberman is so persistent in his attempts
: to turn every form of social media into a scattershot weapon
: aimed at the angry words and hashtags of "Islamist
: extremists." Possibly a core chunk of his key demographic
: responds well to blaming the internet for terrorism, but that
: seems unlikely. Maybe he just likes to see his name in print
: and, much like four-year-olds and Lindsay Lohan, firmly believes
: any "attention" is "good attention."
:
: