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You are here: Home / Archives for Twitter

Twitter freezes 125,000 accounts for ‘terror content’

February 6, 2016 by Nasheman

Move comes after governments urge social networks to eliminate activity aimed at recruiting and planning violent acts.

Most of the suspended Twitter accounts were linked to ISIL [Bethany Clarke/Getty Images]

Most of the suspended Twitter accounts were linked to ISIL [Bethany Clarke/Getty Images]

by Al Jazeera

Twitter has suspended more than 125,000 accounts, most of them linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, as part of a stepped-up effort to eradicate “terrorist content” on the popular messaging platform.

The social network has said the accounts were frozen since mid-2015 “for threatening or promoting terrorist acts”.

“Like most people around the world, we are horrified by the atrocities perpetrated by extremist groups,” Twitter said on its policy blog on Friday.

“We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism and the Twitter rules make it clear that this type of behaviour, or any violent threat, is not permitted on our service.”

The announcement comes after the US and other governments urged social networks to take more aggressive steps to root out activity aimed at recruiting and planning violent acts.

Twitter said it already has rules to discourage this activity but that it was driving up enforcement by boosting staff and using technology to filter violence-promoting content. But it warned there was no easy technological solution.

“As many experts and other companies have noted, there is no ‘magic algorithm’ for identifying terrorist content on the internet, so global online platforms are forced to make challenging judgement calls based on very limited information and guidance,” Twitter said.

“In spite of these challenges we will continue to aggressively enforce our rules in this area and engage with authorities and other relevant organisations to find viable solutions to eradicate terrorist content from the internet and promote powerful counter-speech narratives.”

Last March, Facebook updated its “community standards”, saying this would curb the use of the social network giant for promoting “terrorism” or hate speech.

The update said Facebook will not allow a presence from groups advocating “terrorist activity, organised criminal activity or promoting hate”.

The move came after videos of gruesome executions appeared on Facebook and other social media as part of ISIL propaganda efforts.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ISIL, ISIS, Twitter

Now, Hema Malini holds girl’s father responsible for fatal car mishap

July 8, 2015 by Nasheman

Sonam

New Delhi: A week after her speeding luxury car crashed into a Maruti Alto killing a four-year-old girl and critically injuring her parents in Dausa, the BJP MP Hema Malini has indirectly blamed the father of the girl for the accident.

The actor-turned-politician took to Twitter and expressed how sorry she was about the death of a four-year-old girl.

But, she also tweeted saying that it could have been averted if the girl’s father “followed traffic rules”. “How I wish the girl’s father had followed the traffic rules – thn this accident could have been averted & the lil one’s life safe!” said the veteran actress on Twitter.

The accident happened last week when the Mercedes she was travelling in (according to a few eye-witnesses she was driving) rammed into another car in Dausa.

A four-year-old girl was killed in the accident and five others were injured. Hema was immediately taken to a hospital, but the family of the deceased alleged that the little girl could have been saved had she been taken to the hospital along with the BJP MP.

Hema’s driver was arrested, but was released on bail within hours. Hema also tweeted that her “heart goes out to the child who unnecessarily lost her life”. She thanked all her well wishers and said that her recovery would not have been so quick without their support. The MP had undergone a surgery and was also treated for a minor fracture on her nose.

(Agencies)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Dausa, Hema Malini, Twitter

#SelfieWithDaughter: Shruti Seth Pens Moving Open Letter to Modi

July 4, 2015 by Nasheman

Shruti Seth

by Shruti Seth

A little note to India,

I write this to an entire nation because no one individual can be held responsible for bringing about change in the mindset of a billion odd people. Change can only happen if there is awareness at an individual level.

On the morning of June 28, I made the grave mistake of expressing my views on an initiative called #SelfieWithDaughter which had been blessed by our PM. Most people found it to be a sweet gesture and a means to create awareness about female infanticide. I, sadly, didn’t find the idea very palatable. Keep in mind that I have an 11-month daughter of my own. But I expect more from the man who’s supposed to usher in a new era of change, not just tenuous surface-level initiatives.

I then made a graver mistake of posting this opinion on Twitter. So not only did I dare to think, I also dared to place my thoughts in the public domain.

And then, at the risk of sounding overly-Shakespearean, the floodgates of hell opened. I was subjected to a tsunami of hate tweets. 48 hours of non stop trolling. The tweets were targeted at me, my family, my ‘Muslim’ husband, my eleven-month-old daughter and, of course, my non-existent, dwindling, no-good career as an actor.

I had made an unsavoury comment about our Prime Minister by calling him – *gasp* – #SelfieObsessed and asking him to choose reform over gimmickry. Was I wrong? Was I too harsh? Apparently, for those who support him and the ruling government, unquestioningly so. I, as a member of the tax-paying electorate of India, did not have the right to comment on his policy. I had dared to challenge his authority. I had abused the highest office of the country (which is the President, by the way).

And so I deserved to be punished. And punished In a manner commensurate with the vitriol that the anonymity & access of Twitter so easily provide.

Men and women alike said the most vile things about me, stripping me of all my dignity as someone’s daughter, wife and mother and most importantly a woman. Men who were busy hash-tagging their selfies with their daughters one minute called me slanderous names the next. Asked me if I knew who my real father was. Questioned if I had been sexually abused as a child and hence was opposed to the idea of a selfie with my father. And these are the relatively polite ones. Well done, gentlemen. Your daughters must be so proud.

Women, who are meant to empower each other, asked me if I was a prostitute and if I was planning on doing the same with my daughter. Whether I was trying to gain some fame and resurrect my failed career by using the prime minister’s name. I shudder to think of the deep respect your sons will have for the opposite sex.

So here’s the thing. What is the point of taking selfies with your girls when you’re also responsible for creating the most toxic environment for them to grow up in? How will taking a photograph nullify the misogyny and patriarchy that is so deeply entrenched in our society? Why bother to increase the number of girls being born when you choose to treat them with such indignity and disrespect?

All those who trolled me incessantly for forty eight hours, did you for once stop and think that I, too, am someone’s daughter? Did you ever ask yourselves how you’d feel if it were your daughter at the receiving end of all that hate? I’m guessing the answer is a big, resounding “No”. Because, you know, you were too busy pouting for the camera and getting ‘likes’ and ‘RT’s to your #SelfieWithDaughter. As for our esteemed PM, I have this to say to him:

Dear Sir,

If you truly wish to empower women, I urge you to condemn this kind of hatred being spread in your name.

Regretfully, I deleted my initial tweet because of the backlash. But I stand by what I said and I’ll reiterate it here: “Selfies don’t bring about change, reform does. So please try and be bigger than a photograph. Come on!”

And as for my initial reservation about the initiative being nothing more than eyewash, I am deeply saddened to see that, in the end, I was proved right.

(The article first appeared here.)

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: #SelfieWithDaughter, Narendra Modi, Shruti Seth, Social Media, Twitter

Sushma Swaraj reacts angrily on Twitter; Chidambaram demands release of letters to UK

June 17, 2015 by Nasheman

Sushma Swaraj

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday reacted angrily to a tweet suggesting she took favours to get her daughter a seat in a medical college through the northeast quota.

“My daughter is a barrister and Oxford graduate. What you say is absolutely false,” she replied to the tweet.

The twitter handle ‘Soch @pakoed’ had insinuated that “Sushma is no stranger to taking and giving favours! Her daughter studied through NorthEast quota in medical college.”

Twitterati immediately reacted, wondering at Sushma’s impulsive response to a stray tweet. The handle @pakoed was deleted, though its tweet was retweeted by others.

Sushma’s twitter supporters urged her not to be hassled by a “dog that barks” and keep up her good work.

On Monday too, Sushma appears to have lost her cool, targeting a senior journalist of a news channel that was reporting on the Lalit Modi episode. “Look who is preaching propriety – of all the persons Navika Kumar!” she posted.

Sushma’s daughter Bansuri is a lawyer, who is reported to have appeared in passport cancellation matters relating to former Indian Premier League chief Lalit Modi before the court.

The Congress has pointed this out in its accusations against the minister, citing “conflict of interest”.

The senior minister is facing flak for having helped Lalit Modi procure documents to travel to Portugal in 2014. Lalit Modi, who is wanted by the Enforcement Directorate for alleged financial impropriety in the money-spinning IPL, stays in London.

Her husband Swaraj Kaushal was governor of Mizoram from 1990 to 1993 and is an expert on the northeast.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: BJP, Congress, Lalit Modi, P Chidambaram, Scandal, Sushma Swaraj, Twitter, UK

37K-page charge sheet against pro-IS twitter account handler Mehdi Biswas

June 2, 2015 by Nasheman

shamiwitness

Bengaluru: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Bengaluru police has filed a charge sheet against Mehdi Masroor Biswas, 24, the suspected handler of pro-Islamic State Twitter account, @ShamiWitness.

The CCB’s investigation team filed the charge sheet before a special court here on Monday, more than five-and-a-half months after Biswas’s arrest. Police had arrested Biswas, who was then working as a manufacturing executive with ITC Foods, from his one-room rented flat near Jalahalli in Gangammanagudi police limits on December 13, 2014, after Britain’s Channel 4 broadcast an interview with him.

In the interview, Biswas is heard admitting to handling @ShamiWitness, an IS propagandist Twitter account, for the last few years. Biswas’s Twitter account had more than 17,000 followers at the time of his arrest.

“The charge sheet runs into 36,986 pages, including exhibits, and contains details of about 1.22 lakh tweets and 18,000 followers. We have charged him under various sections of appropriate Acts and are confident of proving the charges in the court of law,” Joint Commissioner of (Crime) M Chandrashekhar said.

The charges

The CCB claimed that Biswas was a “representative” of Islamic State (IS) chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and planned to “establish” the caliphate. He made a “mockery” of those opposed to Baghdadi and the IS. He described the militants killed in Jammu and Kashmir as “martyrs” and urged Indians to support the IS. In the interview to Channel 4, he even expressed a desire to join the IS. Tests have “proved” that the voice in the interview was Biswas’s. The CCB also collected evidence about his contacts with “terrorists who know the English language”.

Biswas created “fake” e-mail IDs between January 25, 2013, and December 11, 2014, used the available content on the Internet and generated 1,22,203 tweets, besides uploading 15, 446 pictures. He used the Twitter account as a platform to “expand the base of his operations and instil fear among non-Muslims”. He “shared” the details of bordering areas of the IS to help those willing to join the organisation.

Mehdi has been charged under IPC sections 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 121 (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war, against the government of India), 124 (a) (sedition) and 153 (a) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony), section 66 (f) (cyber terrorism) of IT Act, 2000, and sections 13(1)(b) (advocating, abetting, advising or inciting any unlawful activity), 18 (b) recruiting of any person or persons for terrorist activity and 39 (support given to a terrorist organisation) of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008.

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Bangalore police, Bengaluru, ISIS, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, shamiwitness, Twitter

#ModiInsultsIndia trends on Twitter: Here's why

May 19, 2015 by Nasheman

Modi

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diplomatic efforts with China turned sour on Tuesday with a leading Chinese government mouthpiece saying that not many foreign direct investments are coming to India.

According to the mouthpiece, “”For the moment, there is little evidence of success for foreign investments from private enterprises. Economy a dilemma for globe-trotting Modi. Relentless efforts at major power diplomacy. In the end, if any country tries to encourage investments to India, most of the programmes will be led by the government itself, with most of the private business sector skeptical about the whole idea.”

The Chinese media also pointed out that the daily hard-nosed assessment of the country stops investors from doing promising business in India.
The article also targeted disappointing power failures, lack of decent roads and ports for transportation.

“Labour unrest occurs from time to time. Attracting investments against such backdrop will prove to be a major problem,” it added.

The mouthpiece barely two days after Modi’s visit to the ‘Dragon Kingdom’ comes as a jolt to those Indians who are expecting much out of the foreign tour.

Meanwhile, it gives another issue to the opposition who has time and again targeted PM for spending much on his foreign tours.
The shaming act by Chinese act also led to a trend on Twitter with people adding remarks using hashtag #ModiInsultsIndia.

Half of the time in abroad. Ret of the time in front of camera. PM of India become laughing stock. #ModiInsultsIndia pic.twitter.com/MQTCXvPOQS

— KTL (@K_T_L) May 18, 2015

This is how you keep us EMBARRASSED camera savvy PM #ModiInsultsIndia pic.twitter.com/XQdbEEwQyC

— Amar #WithRG (@vistadreamz) May 18, 2015

Ppl may dislike many things happening in India.Go abroad for better opportunities.But they’re NOT ashamed of being Indian. #ModiInsultsIndia

— Tinu Cherian Abraham (@tinucherian) May 19, 2015

How Can You Be Ashamed Of India..The 2nd Largest Growing Economy In The World @narendramodi & It Was Before You Became PM! #ModiInsultsIndia

— iAmMusa (@onlyursmusa) May 18, 2015

आप यहाँ आये किसलिए? जी आपने बुलाया इसलिये.. आये हैं तो काम भी बताइए.. जी पहले अपना देश तो घुमाईये. pic.twitter.com/efx39P1hfh

— Pankaj Mishra (@pankajmishra23) May 18, 2015

Filed Under: India Tagged With: China, ModiInsultsIndia, Narendra Modi, Twitter

New art exhibition explores what happens when everyone can be a journalist

January 28, 2015 by Nasheman

The power and potential of social media dominates Jesse Hlebo’s show.

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces (for Sebastian), 2015. 15 minute video loop on 55" LCD TV, embedded in burnt plasterboard. panels, gasoline, found palettes. Edel Assanti

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces (for Sebastian), 2015. 15 minute video loop on 55″ LCD TV, embedded in burnt plasterboard. panels, gasoline, found palettes. Edel Assanti

by Mel Bunce, The Conversation

Jesse Hlebo is troubled. The New York-based artist’s latest exhibition, In Pieces explores information overload and authenticity in the internet era – and it’s a challenging place to spend some time.

Walking into the gallery space in Fitzrovia is like opening a laptop to find three YouTube clips blaring at full volume and 16 tabs open on the browser.

In the middle of the room, a large screen projects an endless loop of amateur videos from crises around the world: conflict in the Ukraine, fighting in Gaza, the aftermath of the Boston bombing and the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy. The events flow seamlessly together, and the crises become increasingly difficult to distinguish. There’s no context or information; the audience is taken on a GoPro tour through a post-apocalyptic world, with no guide.

The loop captures some of Hlebo’s concerns about the internet’s vast media ecosystem: “In the amalgamation, there’s just so much,” he says. “There’s constant documenting, constant streaming … People don’t question its validity or where it comes from.”

Jesse Hlebo, In Pieces. Edel Assanti

Everyone’s a journalist

Hlebo is far from alone in his sense of unease. Over the past two decades, technology has radically altered media content, and raised a host of questions around authenticity, representation and power.

In the early 2000s, digital cameras and mobile internet access transformed everyday citizens into amateur journalists and the line between media producer and consumer started to blur.

As researcher and journalist Glenda Cooper notes, the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 was a touchstone event in the rise of citizen-generated news content. There were almost no foreign correspondents in South-East Asia when the disaster hit – and the raw and powerful images captured by citizens and tourists came to dominate international news coverage.

For a few very short years, citizen-generated content was mediated by traditional news gatekeepers. Citizens would send their pictures and footage to a mainstream outlet: a wire service, the BBC, a newspaper. At these outlets, journalists could (potentially, but not always) contextualise and explain the content to their audiences.

And then came Twitter

The development and mass uptake of social media disrupted these processes once again. With Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, citizens become the distribution channels for media content.

When an aircraft miraculously landed on the Hudson River in January 2009, Jānis Krūms was on a nearby ferry. Instead of sending his now famous image to a news outlet, he uploaded it to Twitter where the picture went viral – 15 minutes before the “old media” had the story.

http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.

— Jānis Krūms (@jkrums) January 15, 2009

The event became known as Twitter’s “defining moment“, and media outlets realised they had, to a large extent, lost control of the message. Images and information could be uploaded, disseminated, replicated, decontextualised and re-purposed ad infinitum.

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy became the archetypal example of our new media ecology. Millions of photos were uploaded and endlessly circulated online. Some were authentic. Others were of historical weather events, cut-and-paste from fictional movies or dramatically edited on photoshop. And inevitably (this is the internet) there were cats.

New Gang moves into New York and takes over the subway… #Sandy #NewYork #NewJersey #shark #sharks pic.twitter.com/EYGqg2rv

— Zulf (@Zulf_RadioDude) October 30, 2012

The high circulation of de-contextualised and unverified images remains problematic. On January 12, photos purporting to depict a Boko Haram attack in Northern Nigeria last summer were revealed to be re-circulated images showing the aftermath of a fuel tanker explosion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The organisation stopfake.org has identified a number of false images in high circulation about Ukraine. One particularly dark image, claiming to show a morgue in Ukraine, was taken five years ago in Mexico. In their redistribution, these photos are infused with new meaning, and can become significant political tools. And such issues have been widely noted in content about Syria, calling into question the credibility of both traditional and social media depictions of the crisis. The promise of new voices Of course, it’s not all bad. The liberation of images from traditional storytellers has also opened up huge opportunity. Social media played a pivotal role in the Arab Spring, which academics are still working to understand. And it allows audiences to challenge dominant representations in the mainstream media. In Kenya, for example, the hashtag #SomeonetellCNN was used to effectively critique and parody a problematic CNN report, leading to an apology and eventual retraction.

We are having offending video pulled. Again, apologies for the mistake. It was changed on air, but not online. Now it is.

— David McKenzie (@McKenzieCNN) March 11, 2012

The power and potential of social media is explored in the second screen that dominates Hlebo’s exhibition. The amateur film – also very difficult to watch – shows Michael Brown’s mother receiving the news that the police officer who killed her son would not be indicted.

The mother’s raw anger tells a different side of the Ferguson story. For Hlebo, it reflects the potential of narrative unleashed from the traditional channels:

To see a mother receive that information in front of the world, without mediation, the power of that. We’re seeing it. It may have taken 270 years. But we’re seeing it.

Around the walls of the gallery hang pieces of Hlebo’s art that were damaged by a demolition team knocking down his Brooklyn flat. The pieces are black and burned, with only a passing resemblance to their original form. Their significance? Entirely up to the viewer.

Filed Under: Opinion Tagged With: Citizen Journalism, Jesse Hlebo, Journalism, Social Media, Twitter, Visual Arts

Twitter and Facebook 'allowing Islamophobia to flourish' as anti-Muslim comments proliferate

January 5, 2015 by Nasheman

Number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, has increased significantly

Twitter Facebook

by Oliver Wright, The Independent

Twitter and Facebook are refusing to take down hundreds of inflammatory Islamophobic postings from across their sites despite being alerted to the content by anti-racism groups, an investigation by The Independent has established.

The number of postings, some of which accuse Muslims of being rapists, paedophiles and comparable to cancer, has increased significantly in recent months in the aftermath of the Rotherham sex-abuse scandal and the murder of British hostages held by Isis.

The most extreme call for the execution of British Muslims – but in most cases those behind the abuse have not had their accounts suspended or the posts removed.

Facebook said it had to “strike the right balance” between freedom of expression and maintaining “a safe and trusted environment” but would remove any content reported to it that “directly attacks others based on their race”. Twitter said it reviews all content that is reported for breaking its rules which prohibit specific threats of violence.

Over the past four months Muslim groups have been attempting to compile details of online abuse and report it to Twitter and Facebook. They have brought dozens of accounts and hundreds of messages to the attention of the social-media companies.

But despite this most of the accounts reported are still easily accessible. On New Year’s Eve the author of one of the accounts reported wrote: “If whites had groomed only paki girls 1 It would be a race hate crime. 2 There would be riots from all Muslim dogs.”

Other examples of extremist postings on Twitter include:

*A user posted an image of a girl with a noose around her neck with the caption: “6 per cent of white British girls will become sex slaves to the Islamic slave trade in Britain”.

*A tweet which reads: “Should have lost World War Two. Your daughters would be getting impregnated by handsome blond Germans instead of Pakistani goat herders. Good job Britain.”

*On Facebook a posting in response to the beheading of Westerners in Syria is also still easily accessible despite being reported to the company weeks ago. It reads: “For every person beheaded by these sick savages we should drag 10 off the streets and behead them, film it and put it online. For every child they cut in half … we cut one of their children in half. An eye for an eye.”

When the comments were reported, Facebook said that they did not breach the organisation’s guidelines.

Fiyaz Mughal, director of Faith Matters, an interfaith organisation which runs a helpline called Tell MAMA, for victims of anti-Muslim violence, said he was disappointed by the attitude of both firms. “It is morally unacceptable that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which are vast profit-making companies, socially engineer what is right and wrong to say in our society when they leave up inflammatory, highly socially divisive and openly bigoted views,” he said.

“These platforms have inserted themselves into our social fabric to make profit and cannot sit idly by and shape our futures based on ‘terms and conditions’ that are not fit for purpose.”

Mr Mughal said that Tell MAMA regularly received reports of anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate from concerned Facebook and Twitter users.

He added that the far-right group Britain First relied on Facebook to organise, campaign and misinform followers about Islam and Muslims.

The rise in online abuse would appear to mirror a rise in hate attacks during the past year. In October the Metropolitan Police released figures to show hate crime against Muslims in London had risen by 65 per cent over the previous 12 months. Latest figures also suggest that, nationally, anti-Muslim hate crime has risen sharply following the murder of Lee Rigby in 2013.

One man, Eric King, was recently given a suspended sentence for sending a local mosque a picture smeared with dog excrement depicting Mohamed having sex with a pig. However his Facebook account, which he used to send abusive messages to the same mosque, is still active and promoting anti-Muslim hatred.

Mr Mughal added that social media platforms needed to make their content management procedures stricter.

“If users were to express such unacceptable opinions about ‘shooting’ Black British citizens or discussed Jews as a ‘cancer’, their speech would not be legal. The same protections should be forwarded to references to the Muslim community,” he said.

In a statement Facebook said it had a clear policy for deciding what was and what was not acceptable freedom of speech. “We take hate speech seriously and remove any content reported to us that directly attacks others based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition,” said a spokeswoman. “With a diverse global community of more than a billion people, we occasionally see people post content which, whilst not against our rules, some people may find offensive. By working with community groups like Faith Matters, we aim to show people the power of counter speech and, in doing so, strike the right balance between giving people the freedom to express themselves and maintaining a safe and trusted environment.”

A Twitter spokesman said: “We review all reported content against our rules, which prohibit targeted abuse and direct, specific threats of violence against others.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Facebook, Hate, Islamophobia, Muslims, Social Media, Twitter

Mehdi Masroor Biswas sent to judicial custody

January 3, 2015 by Nasheman

Mehdi Masroor Biswas

Bengaluru: A special court Friday sent ISIS Twitter handler Mehdi Masroor Biswas to 14 day judicial custody after his 15-day police custody expired, a top police official said.

“Our probe team has collected sufficient evidence from him (Mehdi) on his pro-ISIS propaganda for the banned terrorist outfit (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) during his police custody over the last two weeks,” city Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi told reporters here.

The 24-year-old executive in a private firm was arrested Dec 14 and a case was registered against him under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act for waging war against a friendly country.

“With the help of social media experts, we have so far analysed about 12,000 messages Mehdi tweeted/posted on his Facebook account, in which he encouraged youth to join ISIS though it is difficult to establish if recruitment took place,” Reddi said.

British News Channel 4 Dec 11 unmasked Mehdi as a radical supporter of ISIS through social media and Twitter handler @ShamiWitness where he was regularly tweeting from here on the group’s unlawful activities in Iraq and Syria.

“Investigation so far has revealed that Mehdi is a propagandist of ISIS ideology and has been instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly countries and against whom the terror group is at war,” Reddi said.

Mehdi, who hails from Gopalpur town in West Bengal’s Nadia district, is employed in the foods division of the Kolkata-based ITC Ltd here.

“We know Mehdi was in touch with one combatant in Iraq and was of some help to him, informing him of movement of forces and availability of passages. He is a highly radicalised person and has deep knowledge of what he was doing,” Reddi said.

Mehdi confessed to the investigation team that he had been operating the Twitter account after he got interested in the developments of the Levantine region comprising Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Strip, Egypt and Libya.

He has about 17,000 Twitter followers and used to aggressively tweet by collecting information and watching developments in the desert region.

Mehdi’s Twitter handler was shut Dec 12 after the news channel revealed his identity and reported about the terror activities he was carrying in the virtual world beyond office hours.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Bangalore, Bengaluru, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, shamiwitness, Social Media, Twitter

Mehdi Masroor Biswas's police custody extended by 15 days

December 19, 2014 by Nasheman

Mehdi Masroor Biswas

Bengaluru: A court here Thursday extended the police custody of alleged Islamic State (IS) supporter Mehdi Masroor Biswas by 15 days for further interrogation on charges of waging war against a country which is at peace with India, police said.

“We produced Mehdi in the sessions court on expiry of his five-day custody to further interrogate him on his postings in the social media and Twitter handle (@ShamiWitness), as part of our investigation. We have secured his custody for another 15 days up to Jan 2,” city police commissioner M.N. Reddi told reporters.

Police registered a criminal case Dec 13 against Biswas under specific sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Information Technology (IT) Act for waging war against any Asiatic power in alliance or at peace with India.

A British news channel Dec 11 unmasked the city-based 24-year-old executive as a radical supporter of the IS through social media and Twitter.

“The investigation so far has revealed that Biswas is a propagandist of IS ideology and has been instrumental in influencing minds against our friendly countries and against whom the terror group is at war,” Reddi said.

Biswas, who hails from Gopalpur town in West Bengal’s Nadia district, is employed in the foods division of a Kolkata-based company in Bengaluru.

He confessed that he was operating the Twitter account after he got interested in the developments of the Levantine region comprising Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza Strip, Egypt and Libya.

His parents – Mikhael Biswas and Mamtaz Begum – who arrived in Bengaluru Wednesday from Kolkata, were allowed to meet their son at an undisclosed place, as he has been in police custody since Dec 14.

“His parents also met me and shared their concerns over his alleged involvement with the IS terror activities through the social media. I have assured them that our investigation would be impartial, unbiased and objective,” Reddi said.

(IANS)

Filed Under: India Tagged With: Bangalore, Bengaluru, IS, ISIS, Islamic State, Mehdi Masroor Biswas, shamiwitness, Social Media, Twitter

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